





,1 





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Mary Lowther and Mrs. Fenwick , — [Page 14.] 



I 




THE 


VICAR OF BULlHAMfTON 






V- 


By ANTHONY TROLLOPE, 


AUTHOR OF 


[‘THE BERTRAMS,” “CASTLE RICHMOND,” “FRAMLEY PARSONAGE,” “ ORLEY FARM,” 


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1870. 

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V- 




ANTHONY . TROLLOPE’S WORKS. 


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’‘'And at last touched the ball — ” — [Page 15.] 





THE 




VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


PART I. 


. . ' . CHAPTER I. 

• BULLHAMPTON. 

I AM disposed to believe that no 
novel-reader in England has seen 
the little town of Bullhampton, in Wilt- 
shire, except such novel-readers as live 
there, and those others, very few in num- 
ber, who visit it perhaps four times a 
year for the purpose of trade, and who 
are known as commercial gentlemen. 
Bullhampton is seventeen miles from 
Salisbury, eleven from Marlborough, nine 
from Westbury, seven from Haytesbury, 
and five from the nearest railroad station, 
which is called Bullhampton road, and 
lies on the line from Salisbury to Yeo- 
vil. It is not quite on Salisbury Plain, 
but probably was so once, when Salis- 
bury Plain was wider than it is now. 
Whether it should be called a small town 
or a large village I cannot say. It has 
no niayor and no market, but it has a 
fair. There rages a feud in Bullhampton 
touching this want of a market, as there 
are certain Bullhamptonites who aver 
that the charter giving all rights of a 
market to Bullhampton does exist ; and 
that at one period in its history the 
market existed also — for a year or two ; 
but the three bakers and two butchers 


are opposed to change, and the patriots 
of the place, though they declaim on the 
matter over their evening pipes and gin- 
and-water, have npt enough of matutinal 
zeal to carry out '.their purpose. Bull- 
hampton is situated on a little river, 
which meanders through the chalky 
^ground, and has a quiet, slow, dreamy 
prettiness of its own. A mile above the 
town — for we will call it a town — the 
stream divides itself into many stream- 
lets, and there is a district called the 
Water Meads, in which bridges are more 
frequent than trustworthy, in which there 
are hundreds of little sluice-gates for 
regulating the irrigation, and a growth of 
grass which is a source of much anxiety 
and considerable trouble to the farmers. 
There is a water-mill Egre, too, very low, 
with ever a floury, m»ly look, with a 
pasty look often, as the flour becomes 
damp with the spray of the water as it 
is thrown by the mill-wheel. It seems 
to be a tattered, shattered, ramshackle 
concern, but it has been in the same 
family for many years ; and as the family 
has not hitherto been in distress, it may 
be supposed that the mill still affords a 
fair means of livelihood. The Brattles 
— for Jacob Brattle is the miller’s name 
— have ever been known as men who 



10 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


paid scot and lot, and were able to hold 
up their heads. But nevertheless Jacob 
Brattle is ever at war with his landlord 
in regard to repairs wanted for his mill ; 
and Mr. Gilmore, the landlord in ques- 
tion, declares that he wishes that the 
Avon would some night run so high as 
to carry off the mill altogether. Bull- 
hampton is very quiet. There is no 
special trade in the place. Its interests 
are altogether agricultural. It has no 
newspaper. Its tendencies are altogether 
conservative. It is a good deal given 
to religion ; and the Primitive Methodists 
have a very strong holding there, although 
in all Wiltshire there is not a clergyman 
more popular in his own parish than the 
Rev. Frank Fenwick. He himself, in 
his inner heart, rather likes his rival, 
Mr. Puddleham, the dissenting minister, 
because Mr. Puddleham is an earnest 
man, who, in spite of the intensity of his 
ignorance, is efficacious among the poor. 
But Mr. Fenwick is bound to keep up 
the fight ; and Mr. Puddleham considers 
it to be his duty to put down Mr. Fen- 
wick and the Church Establishment al- 
together. 

The men of Bullhampton, and the 
women also, are aware that the glory has 
departed from them, in that Bullhampton 
was once a borough and returned two 
members to Parliament. No borough 
more close — or, shall we say, more rot- 
ten — ever existed. It was not that the 
Marquis of Trowbridge had, what has 
often delicately been called, an interest 
in it ; but he held it absolutely in his 
breeches pocket, to do with it as he 
liked ; and it had been the liking of the 
late marquis to sell one of the seats 
at every election^o the highest bidder 
on his side inLpolitics. Nevertheless 
the people of Bullhampton had gloried 
in being a borough, and the shame, or 
at least the regret, of their downfall had 
not yet altogether passed away when the 
tidings of a new Reform Bill came upon 
them. The people of Bullhampton are 
notoriously slow to learn and slow to 
forget. It was told of a farmer of Bull- 
hampton, in old days, that he asked 
what had become of Charles I., when 
told that Charles II. had been restored. 


Cromwell had come and gone, and had 
not disturbed him at Bullhampton. 

At Bullhampton there is no public 
building, except the church, which in- 
deed is a very handsome edifice with a 
magnificent tower — a thing to go to see, 
and almost as worthy of a visit as its 
neighbor the cathedral at Salisbury. 
The body of the church is somewhat 
low, but its yellow-gray color is perfect, 
and there is, moreover, a Norman door, 
and there are early English windows in 
the aisle, and a perfection of perpen- 
dicular architecture in the chancel, all 
of which should bring many visitors to 
Bullhampton ; and there are brasses in 
the nave, very curious, and one or two 
tombs of the Gilmore family, very rare 
in their construction ; and the church- 
yard is large and green, and bowery, 
with the Avon flowing close under it, 
and nooks in it which would make a 
man wish to die that he might be buried 
there. The church and churchyard of 
Bullhampton are indeed perfect, and yet 
but few people go to see the edifice. It 
has not as yet had its own bard to sing 
its praises. Properly, it is called Bull- 
hampton Monachorum, the living hav- 
ing belonged to the friars of Chiltern. 
The great tithes now go to the Earl of 
Todmorden, who has no other interest 
in the place whatever, and who never 
saw it. The benefice belongs to St. 
John’s, Oxford, and as the vicarage is 
not worth more than four hundred 
pounds a year, it happens that a clergy- 
man generally accepts it before he has 
lived for twenty or thirty years in the 
common room of his college. Mr. Fen- 
wick took it on his marriage, when he 
was about twenty-seven, and Bullhamp- 
ton has been lucky. 

The bulk of the parish belongs to the 
Marquis of Trowbridge, who, however, 
has no residence within ten miles of it. 
The squire of the parish is Squire Gil- 
more — Harry Gilmore; and he pos- 
sesses every acre in it that is not owned 
by the marquis. With the village — or 
town, as it may be — Mr. Gilmore has no 
concern ; but he owns a large tract of 
the water meads, and again has a farm 
or two up on the downs as you go to- 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


II 


/ 


ward Chiltern. But they lie out of the 
parish of Bullhampton. Altogether he 
is a man of about fifteen hundred a year, 
and as he is not as yet married, many a 
Wiltshire mother’s eye is turned toward 
Hampton Privets, as Mr. Gilmore’s 
house is somewhat fantastically named. 

Mr. Gilmore’s character must be made 
to develop itself in these pages, if such 
developing may be accomplished. He 
is to be our hero — or at least one of two. 
The author will not, in these early words, 
declare that the squire will be his favor- 
ite hero, as he will wish that his readers 
should form their own opinions on that 
matter. At this period he was a man 
somewhat over thirty — perhaps thirty- 
three years of age — who had done fairly 
well at Harrow and at Oxford, but had 
never done enough to make his friends 
regard him as a swan. He still read a 
good deal, but he shot and fished more 
than he read, and had become, since his 
residence at the Privets, very fond of the 
outside of his books. Nevertheless, he 
went on buying books, and was rather 
proud of his library. He had traveled 
a good deal, and was a politician — some- 
what scandalizing his own tenants and 
other Bullhamptonites by voting for the 
Liberal candidates for his division of the 
county. The Marquis of Trowbridge 
did not know him, but regarded him as 
an objectionable person, who did not un- 
derstand the nature of the duties which 
devolved upon him as a country gentle- 
man ; and the marquis himself was al- 
ways spoken of by Mr. Gilmore as — an 
idiot. On these various grounds the 
squire has hitherto regarded himself as 
being a little in advance of other squires, 
and has, perhaps, given himself more 
credit than he ha^ deserved for intellect- 
uality. But he is a man with a good 
heart and a pure mind — generous, de- 
sirous of being just, somewhat sparing 
of that which is his own, never desirous 
of that which is another’s. He is good- 
looking, though perhaps somewhat or- 
dinary in appearance ; tall, strong, with 
dark-brown hair and dark-brown whis- 
kers, with small, quick gray eyes, and teeth 
which are almost too white and too per- 
fect for a man. Perhaps it is his great- 


est fault that he thinks that as a Liberal 
politician and as an English country 
gentleman he has combined in his own 
position all that is most desirable upon 
earth. To have the acres without the 
acre-laden brains is, he thinks, every- 
thing. 

And now it may be as well told at 
once that Mr. Gilmore is over head and 
ears in love with a young lady, to whom 
he has offered his hand, and all that can 
be made to appertain to the future mis- 
tress of Hampton Privets. And the 
lady is one who has nothing to give in 
return but her hand, and her heart, and 
herself. The neighbors all round the 
country have been saying for the last 
five years that Harry Gilmore was look- 
ing out for an heiress ; for it has always 
been told of Harry, especially among 
those who have opposed him in politics, 
that he had a keen eye for the main 
chance. But Mary Lowther has not, 
and never can have, a penny with which 
to make up for any deficiency in her own 
personal attributes. But Mary is a lady, 
and Harry Gilmore thinks her the sweet- 
est woman on whom his eye ever rested. 
Whatever resolutions as to fortune-hunt- 
ing he may have made — though proba- 
bly none were ever made — they have all 
now gone to the winds. He is so abso- 
lutely in love that nothing in the world 
is, to him, at present worth thinking 
about except Mary Lowther. I do not 
doubt that he would vote for a Conser- 
vative candidate if Mary Lowther so 
ordered him, or consent to go and live 
in New York if Mary Lowther would 
accept him on no other condition. All 
Bullhampton parish is nothing to him at 
the present moment, except as far as it is 
connected with Mar.j||Lowther. Hamp- 
ton Privets is dear tonim only as far as 
it can be made to look attractive in the 
eyes of Mary Lowther. The mill is to 
be repaired, though he knows he will 
never get any interest on the outlay, be- 
cause Mary Lowther has said that Bull- 
hampton water meads would be destroyed 
if the mill were to tumble down. He 
has drawn for himself mental pictures of 
Mary Lowther till he has invested her 
with every charm and grace and virtue 


12 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


that can adorn a woman. In very truth 
he believes her to be perfect. He is 
actually and absolutely in love. Mary 
Lowther has hitherto neither accepted 
nor rejected him. In a very few lines 
farther on we will tell how the matter 
stands between them. 

It has already been told that the Rev. 
Frank Fenwick is vicar of Bullhampton. 
Perhaps he was somewhat guided in his 
taking of the living by the fact that 
Harry Gilmore, the squire of the parish, 
had been his very intimate friend at Ox- 
ford. Fenwick at the period with which 
we are about to begin our story, had 
been six years at Bullhampton, and had 
been married about five and a half. Of 
him something has already been said, 
and perhaps it may be only necessary 
further to state that he is a tall, fair- 
haired man, already becoming somewhat 
bald on the top of his head, with bright 
eyes, and the slightest possible amount 
of whiskers, and a look about his nose 
and mouth which seems to imply that 
he could be severe if he were not so 
thoroughly good-humored. He has more 
of breeding in his appearance than his 
friend — a show of higher blood ; though 
whence comes such show, and how one 
discerns that appearance, few of us can 
tell. He was a man who read more 
and thought more than Harry Gilmore, 
though given much to athletics, and 
very fond of field sports. It shall only 
further be said of Frank Fenwick that 
he esteemed both his churchwardems 
and his bishop, and was afraid of 
neither. 

His wife had been a Miss Balfour, 
from Loring, in Gloucestershire, and 
had had some considerable fortune. 
She was now th^ mother of four chil- 
dren, and, as ?*enwick used to say, 
might have fourteen for anything he 
knew. But as he also had possessed 
some small means of his own, there was 
no poverty, or prospect of poverty, at 
the vicarage, and the babies were made 
welcome as they came. Mrs. P'enwick 
is as good a specimen of an English 
country parson’s wife as you shall meet 
in the county — gay, good-looking, fond 
of the society around her, with a little 


dash of fun, knowing in blankets, and 
corduroys, and coals, and tea ; knowing 
also as to beer, and gin, and tobacco ; 
acquainted with every man and woman 
in the parish ; thinking her husband to 
be quite as good as the squire in regard 
to position, and to be infinitely superior 
to the squire, or any other man in the 
world, in regard to his personal self ; — a 
handsome, pleasant, well-dressed lady, 
who has no nonsense about her. Such 
a one was, and is, Mrs. Fenwick. 

Now the Balfours were considerable 
people at Loring, though their property 
was not county property ; and it was 
always considered that Janet Balfour 
might have done better than she did in 
a worldly point of view. Of that, how- 
ever, little had been said at Loring, be- 
cause it soon became known there that 
she and her husband stood rather well 
in the country round about Bullhampton ; 
and when she asked Mary Lowther to 
come and stay with her for six months, 
Mary Lowther’s aunt. Miss Marrable, 
had nothing to say against the arrange- 
ment, although she herself was a most 
particular old lady, and always remem- 
bered that Mary Lowther was third or 
fourth cousin to some earl in Scotland. 
Nothing more shall be said of Miss 
Marrable at present, as it is expedient, 
for the sake of the story, that the reader 
should fix his attention on Bullhampton 
till he find himself quite at home there. 
I would wish him to know his way 
among the water meads, to be quite 
alive to the fact that the lodge of Hamp- 
ton Privets is a mile and a quarter to 
the north of Bullhampton church, and 
half a mile, across the fields, west from 
Brattle’s mill; that Mr. Fenwick’s par- 
sonage adjoins the churchyard, being 
thus a little farther from Hampton Pri- 
vets than the church ; and that there 
commences Bullhampton street, with its 
inn — the Trowbridge Arms — its four 
public-houses, its three bakers and its 
two butchers. The bounds of the par- 
sonage run down to the river, so that 
the vicar can catch his trout from his 
own bank, though he much prefers to 
catch them at distances which admit of 
the appurtenances of sport. 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


13 


Now there must be one word of Mary 
Lowther, and then the story shall be 
commenced. She had come to the 
vicarage in May, intending to stay a 
month, and it was. now August, and she 
had been already three months with her 
friend. Everybody said that she was 
staying because she intended to become 
the mistress of Hampton Privets. It 
was a month since Harry Gilmore had 
formally made his offer, and she had 
not refused him, and as she still stayed 
on, the folk of Bullhampton were justi- 
fied in their conclusions. She was a 
tall girl, with dark-brown hair, which 
she wore fastened in a knot at the back 
of her head, after the simplest fashion. 
Her eyes were large and gray, and full 
of lustre ; but they were not eyes which 
would make you say that Mary Lowther 
was especially a bright-eyed girl. They 
were eyes, however, which could make 
you think, when they looked at you, that 
if Mary Lowther would only like you 
how happy your lot would be ! — that if 
she would love you, the world would 
have nothing higher or better to offer. 
If you judged her face by any rules of 
beauty, you would say that it was too 
thin, but feeling its influence with sym- 
pathy, you could never wish it- to be 
changed. Her nose and mouth were 
perfect. How many little noses there 
are on young woman’s faces which of 
themselves cannot be said to be things 
of beauty or joys for ever, although they 
do very well in their places ! There is 
the softness and color of youth, and per- 
haps a dash of fun, and the eyes above 
are bright, and the lips below alluring. 
In the midst of such sweet charms, what 
does it matter that the nose be puggish — 
or even a nose of putty, such as you think 
you might improve in the original mate- 
rial by a squeeze of your thumb and 
forefinger ! But with Mary Lowther her 
nose itself was a feature of exquisite 
beauty — a feature that could be eloquent 
with pity, reverence or scorn. The 
curves of the nostrils, with their almost 
transparent membranes, told of the 
working of the mind within, as every 
portion of the human face should tell, 
in some degree. And the mouth was 


equally expressive, though the lips were 
thin. It was a mouth to watch, and 
listen to, and read with curious interest, 
rather than a mouth to kiss. Not but 
that the desire to kiss would come, when 
there might be a hope to kiss with favor ; 
but they were lips which no man would 
think to ravage in boisterous play. It 
might have been said there was a want 
of capability for passion in her face, had 
it not been for the well-marked dimple 
in her little chin — that soft couch in 
which one may be always sure, when 
one sees it, that some little imp of Love 
lies hidden. 

It has already been said that Mary 
Lowther was tall — taller than common. 
Her back was as lovely a form of wo- 
manhood as man’s eye ever measured 
and appreciated. Her walk, which was 
never naturally quick, had a grace about 
it which touched men and women alike. 
It was the very poetry of motion ; but 
its chief beauty consisted in this, that 
it was what it was by no effort of her 
own. We have all seen those efforts, 
and it may be that many of us have 
liked them when they have been made 
on our own behalf. But no man as 
yet could ever have felt himself to be 
so far flattered by Miss Lowther. Her 
dress was very plain, as it became her 
that it should be, for she was living on 
the kindness of an aunt who was her- 
self not a rich woman. But it may be 
doubted whether dress could have added 
much to her charms. 

She was now turned one-and-twenty, 
and though, doubtless, there were young 
men at Loring who had sighed for her 
smiles, no young man had sighed with 
any efficacy. It must be acknowledged, 
indeed, that she was not a girl for whom 
the most susceptible of young men would 
sigh. Young men given to sigh are 
generally attracted by some outward and 
visible sign of softness which may be 
taken as an indication that sighing will 
produce some result, however small. At 
Loring it was said that Mary Lowther 
was cold and repellent, and,- on that 
account, one who might very probably 
descend to the shades as an old maid, 
in spite of the beauty of which she was 


14 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMRTON. 


the acknowledged possessor. No ene- 
my, no friend, had ever accused her of 
being a flirt. 

Such as she was, Harry Gilmore’s 
passion for her much astonished his 
friends. Those who knew him best 
had thought that, as regarded his fate 
matrimonial — or non-matrimonial — there 
were three chances before him. He 
might carry out their presumed inten- 
tion of marrying money ; or he might 
become the sudden spoil of the bow and 
spear of some red-cheeked lass ; or he 
might walk on as an old bachelor, too 
cautious to be caught at all. But none 
believed that he would become the vic- 
tim of a grand passion for a poor, reti- 
cent, high-bred, • high-minded specimen 
of womanhood. Such, however, was 
now his condition. 

He had an uncle, a clergyman, living 
at Salisbury, a prebendary there, who 
was a man of the world, and in whom 
Harry trusted more than in any other 
human being. His mother had been the 
sister of the Rev. Henry Fitzackerly 
Chamberlaine, and as Mr. Chamberlaine 
had never married, much of his solici- 
tude was bestowed upon his nephew. 

“ Don’t, my dear fellow,” had been 
the prebendary’s advice when he was 
taken over to see Miss Lowther. “ She 
is a lady, no doubt ; but you would never 
be your own master, and you would be 
a poor man till you died. An easy tem- 
per and a little money are almost as 
common in our rank of life as destitution 
and obstinacy.” On the day after this 
advice was given, Harry Gilmore made 
tiis formal offer. 


CHAPTER II. 

FLO’S RED BALL. 

“You should give him an answer, 
dear, one way or the other.” These 
wise words were spoken by Mrs. Fen- 
wick to her friend as they sat together, 
with their york in their hands, on a gar- 
den seat under a cedar tree. It*was an 
August evening after dinner, and the 
vicar was out about his parish. The 
two elder children were playing in the 


garden, and the two young women were 
alone together. 

“ Of course I shall give him an an- 
swer. What answer does he wish ?” 

“You know what answer he wishes. 
If any man was ever in earnest, he is.” 

“ Am I not doing the best I can for 
him, then, in waiting — to see whether I 
can say yes ?” 

“ It cannot be well for him to be in 
suspense on such a matter ; and, dear 
Mary, it cannot be well for you, either. 
One always feels that when a girl bids a 
man to wait, she will take him after a 
while. It always comes to that. If you 
had been at home at Boring, the time 
would not have been much ; but, being 
so near to him, and seeing him every 
day, must be bad. You must both be 
in a state of fever.” 

“ Then I will -go back to Boring.” 

“ No ; not now, till you have positive- 
ly made up your mind, and given him 
an answer one way or the other. You 
could not go now and leave him in doubt. 
Take him at once and have done with 
it. He is as good as gold.” 

In answer to this Mary, for a while, 
said nothing, but went sedulously on 
with her work. 

“ Mamma,” said a little girl, running 
up, followed by a nursery-maid, “the 
ball’s in the water !” 

The child was a beautiful, fair-haired 
little darling about four and a half years 
old ; and a boy, a year younger, and a 
little shorter, and a little stouter, was 
toddling after her. 

“ The ball in the water, Flo ! Can’t 
Jim get it out ?” 

“Jim’s gone, mamma.” 

Then Jane, the nursery-maid, pro- 
ceeded to explain that the ball had rolled 
in and had been carried down the stream 
to some bushes, and that it was caught 
there just out of reach of all that she, 
Jane, could do with a long stick for its 
recovery. Jim, the gardener, was not to 
be found, and they were in despair lest 
the ball should become wet through and 
should perish. 

Mary at once saw her opportunity of 
escape — her opportunity for that five 
minutes of thought by herself which she 


/ 


f 


THE VICAR OF 


: Ji ”1. I’ll come, Flo, and see what 
> Me,” said Mary. 

’' ause you is so big,” said the 

little girl. 

« We’ll see if my long arms won’t do 
as well as Jim’s,” said Mary ; “only Jim 
would go in, perhaps, which I certainly 
shall not do.” Then she took Flo by 
the hand, and together they ran down to 
the margin of the river. 

There lay the treasure, a huge red in- 
flated ball, just stopped in its downward 
course by a short projecting stick. Jim 
could have got it certainly, because he 
could have suspended himself over the 
stream from a bough, and could have 
dislodged the ball and have floated it on 
to the bank. 

“ Lean over, Mary — a great deal, and 
we’ll hold you,” said Flo, to whom her 
ball was at this mji^'^ent worth any effort. 
Mary did lean over, and poked at it, and 
at last thought that she would trust her- 
self to the bough, as Jim would have 
done, and became more and more ven- 
turous, and at last touched the ball — 
and then, at last, fell into the river ! 
Immediately there was a scream and a 
roar, and a splashing about of skirts and 
petticoats, and by the time that Mrs. 
Fenwick was oh the bank, Mary Lowther 
had extricated herself, and had triumph- 
antly brought out Flo’s treasure with her. 

“ Mary, are you hurt ?” said her 
friend. 

“ What should hurt me ? Oh dear, 
oh dear ! I never fell into a river before. 
My darling Flo, don’t be unhappy. It’s 
such good fun. Only you mustn’t fall 
in yourself, till you are as big as I am.” 
Flo was in an agony of tears, not deign- 
ing to look at the rescued ball. 

“You do not mean that your head 
has been under i”’ said Mrs. Fenwick. 

“My face was, and I felt so odd. For 
about half a moment I had a sound of 
Ophelia in my ears. Then I was laugh- 
ing at myself for being such a goose.” 

“You’d better come up and go to bed, 
dear, and I’ll get you something warm.” 

“ I won’t go to bed, and I won’t have 
anything warm, but I will change my 
clothes. What an adventure ! What 
will Mr. Fenwick say?” 


“What will Mr. Gilmore say?” To 
this Mary Lowther made no answer, but 
went straight up to the house, and into 
her room, and changed her clothes. 

While she was there, Fenwick and 
Gilmore both appeared at the open win- 
dow of the drawing-room in which Mrs. 
Fenwick was sitting. She had known 
well enough that Harr}’- Gilmore wou’H 
not let the evening pass without comir. : 
to the vicarage, and at one time hr 
hoped to persuade Mary Lowther to giv : 
her verdict on this very day. Both si 
and her husband were painfully anxioi 
that Harry might succeed. Fenwick h? 
loved the man dearly for many yeai 
and Janet Fenwick had loved him sim 
she had known him as her husband 
friend. They both felt that he w; • 
showing more of manhood than they h; 
expected from him in the persistency < 
his love, and that he deserved his i 
ward. And they both believed also th 
for Mary herself it would be a prosp« 
ous and a happy marriage. And the 
where is the married woman who do 
not wish that the maiden friend wl ' 
comes to stay with her should find a hu . 
band in her house ? The parson ai 
his wife were altogether of one mind i 
this matter, and thought that Mai . 
Lowther ought to be made to give he- 
self to Harry Gilmore. 

“ What do you think has happened i 
said Mrs. Fenwick, coming to the wii 
dovr, which opened down to the groun* 

“ Mary Lowther has fallen into tl - 
river.” 

“Fallen where?” shouted Gilmor 
putting up both his hands, and seemii 
to prepare himself to rush away amoi 
the river gods in search of his love. 

“ Don’t be alarmed, Mr. Gilmon 
she’s up stairs, quite safe — only she h 
had a ducking.” Then the circu - 
stances were explained, and the pa; 
declared magisterially that Flo must r - A 
play any more with her ball near t;;’ 
river — an order to which it was not pn ' > 
able that much close attention won. • 
ever be paid. 

“ I suppose Miss Lowther will hn 
gone to bed ?” said Gilmore. 

“ On the contrary, I expect her ev 


i6 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


moment. I suggested bed, and warm 
drinks, and cosseting, but she would 
have none of it. She scrambled out all 
by herself, and seemed to think it very 
good fun.” 

Come in, at any rate, and have some 
tea,” said the vicar. “If you start be- 
fore eleven. I’ll walk half the way back 
with you.” 

In the mean time, in spite of her acci- 
Mary had gained the opportunity 
'.hai. she had required. The point for 
self- meditation was not so much whether 
she would or would not accept Mr. Gil- 
now, as that other point — was she 
i IS she not wrong to keep him in 
Jc ; tnse. She knew very well that she 
\\u '-.ji not accept him now. It seemed 
to j-jr that a girl should know a man 
ver. thoroughly before she would be 
juL iiied in trusting herself altogether to 
his hands, and she thought that her 
knowledge of Mr. Gilmore was insuf- 
hc’ert. It might however be the case 
that in such circumstances duty required 
hdr to give him at once an unhesitating 
answer. She did not find herself to be 
a bit nearer to knowing him and to lov- 
inf^- him than she was a month since. 
Her friend Janet had complained again 
aiir again of the suspense to which she 
vs as subjecting the man; but she knew 
oil the other hand that her friend Janet 
did this in her intense anxiety to pro- 
mote the match. Was it wrong to say 
to Jho man, “I will wait and try ?” Her 
frien. told her that to say that she would 
svait and try was in truth to say that she 
would take him at some future time ; 
that any girl who said so had almost 
c ommitted herself to such a decision ; 
t]..it :he very fact that she was waiting 
'.nd< drying to love a man ought to bind 
her to the man at last. Such, certainly, 
had not been her own idea. As far as 
she could at present look into her own 
.' .liur feelings, she did not think that 
-he could ever bring herself to say that 
siie ould be this man’s wife. There 
Y’iis :i solemnity about the position 
which had never come fully home to 
her iiefore she had been thus placed, 
.'vverybody around her told her that the 
nan’s happiness was really bound up in 


her reply. If this were so — and she in 
truth believed that it was so — was she 
not bound to give him every chance in 
her power ? And yet, because she still 
doubted, she was told by her friend 
that she was behaving badly ! She 
would believe her friend, would confess 
her fault, and would tell her lover, in 
what most respectful words of denial 
she could mould, that she would not be 
his wife. For herself, personally, there 
would be no sorrow in this, and no 
regret. 

Her ducking had given her time for 
all this thought ; and then, having so 
decided, she went down stairs. She 
was met, of course, with various inqui- 
ries about her bath. Mr. Gilmore was 
all pity, as though the accident were the 
most serious thing in the world. Mr. 
Fenwick was all mirtK as though there 
had never been a better joke. Mrs. 
Fenwick, who was perhaps unwise in 
her impatience, was specially anxious 
that her two guests might be left to- 
gether. She did not believe that Mary 
Lowther would ever say the final No ; 
and yet she thought also that, if it were 
so, the time had quite come in which 
Mary Lowther ought to say the final 
Yes. 

“ Let us go down and look at the 
spot,” she said, after tea. 

So they went down. It was a beau- 
tiful August night. There was no moon, 
and the twilight was over ; but still it 
was not absolutely dark, and the air 
was as soft as a mother’s kiss to her 
sleeping child. They walked down to- 
gether, four abreast, across the lawn, and 
thence they reached a certain green 
orchard-path that led down to the river. 
Mrs. Fenwick purposely went on with 
the lover, leaving Mary with her hus- 
band, in order that there might be no 
appearance of a scheme; She would 
return with her husband, and then there 
might be a ramble among the paths, and 
the question would be pressed and the 
thing might be settled. 

They saw through the gloom the spot 
where Mary had scrambled, and the 
water, which had then been bright and 
smiling, was now black and awful. 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


17 


“ To think that you should have been 
in there !” said Harry Gilmore, shud- 
dering. 

“To think that she should ever have 
got out again !” said the parson. 

“ It looks frightful in the dark,” said 
Mrs. Fenwick. “Come away, Frank. 
It makes me sick.” And the charming 
schemer took her husband’s arm, and 
continued the round of the garden. “ I 
have been talking to her, and I think 
she would take him if he would ask her 
now.” 

The other pair of course followed 

them. Mary’s mind was so fully made 
up at this moment that she almost wished 
that her companion might ask the ques- 
tion. She had been told that she was 
misusing him ; and she would misuse 
him no longer. She had a firm No, as 
it were, within her grasp, and a resolu- 
tion that she should not be driven from 
it. But he walked on beside her talking 
of the water, and of the danger, and of 
the chance of a cold, and got no nearer 
to the subject than to bid her think what 
suffering she would have caused had she 
failed to extricate herself from the pool. 
He also had made up his mind. Some- 
thing had been said by himself of a cer- 
tain day when last he had pleaded his 
cause ; and that day would not come 
round till the morrow. He considered 
himself pledged to restrain himself till 

then, but on the morrow he would come 
to her. 

There was a little gate which led from 
the parsonage garden through the church- 
yard to a field-path, by which was the 
nearest way to Hampton Privets. 

“I’ll leave you here,” he said, “be- 
cause I don’t want to make Fenwick 
come out again to-night. You won’t mind 
going up through the garden alone ?” 

“Oh dear, no.” 

“ And, Miss Lowther, pray, pray take 
care of yourself. I hardly think you 
ought to have been out again to-night.” 

“It was nothing, Mr. Gilmore. You 
make infinitely too much of it.” 

“ How can I make too much of any- 
thing that regards you 1 You will be at 
home, to-morrow.?” 

“ Yes, I fancy so.” 


“ Do remain at home. I intend to 
come down after lunch. Do remain at 
home.” He held her by the hand as he 
spoke to her, and she promised him that 
she would obey him. He clearly was 
entitled to her obedience on such a point. 
Then she slowly made her way round the 
garden, and entered the house at the 
front door, some quarter of an hour after 
the o.tlfers. 

Why should she refuse him ? .'What 
was it that she wanted in the world ? 
She liked him, his manners, his cha- 
racter, his ways, his mode of life, and 
after a fashion she liked his person. If 
there was more of love in the world than 
this, she did not think that it would 
ever come in her way. Up to this time 
of her life she had never felt any such 
feeling. If not for her own sake, why 
should she not do it for him ? Why 
should he not be made happy? She 
had risked a plunge in the water to get 
Flo her ball, and she liked him better 
than she liked Flo. It seemed that her 
mind had all changed by that stroll 
through the dark alleys. 

“Well,” said Janet, “how is it to be?” 

“ He is to come to-morrow, and I do 
not know how it will be,” she said, turn- 
ing away to her own room. 


CHAPTER III. 

SAM BRATTLE. * 

It was about eleven o’clock when 
Gilmore passed through the wicket lead- 
ing from the vicarage garden to the 
churchyard. The path he was about to 
take crossed simply a corner of the 
church precincts, as it came at once 
upon a public footway leading from the 
fields through the churchyard to the 
town. There was, of course, no stop- 
ping the public path, but Fenwick had 
been often advised to keep a lock on his 
own gate, as otherwise it almost seemed 
that the vicarage gardens were open to all 
Bullhampton. But the lock had never 
been put on. The gate was the way 
by which he and his family went to the 
church, and the parson was accustomed 
to say that however many keys there 


1.8 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


might be provided, he knew that there 
would never be one in his pocket when 
he wanted it. And he was wont to add, 
when his wife would tease him on the 
subject, that they who desired to come 
in decently were welcome, and that they 
who were minded to make an entrance 
indecently would not be debarred by 
such rails and fences as hemmed in the 
vicarage grounds. Gilmore, as he pass- 
ed through the corner of the churchyard, 
clearly saw a man standing near to the 
stile leading from the fields. Indeed, 
this man was quite close to him, al- 
though, from the want of light and the 
posture of the man, the face was invisi- 
ble to him. But he knew the fellow to 
be a stranger to Bullhampton. The 
dress was strange, the manner was 
strange, and the mode of standing was 
strange. Gilmore had lived at Bull- 
hampton all his life, and, without much 
thought on the subject, knew Bullhamp- 
ton ways. The jacket which the man 
wore was a town-made jacket — a jacket 
that had come farther a-field even than 
Salisbury ; and the man’s gaiters had a 
savor which was decidedly not of Wilt- 
shire. Dark as it was, he could see so 
much as this. “Good-night, my friend,” 
said Gilmore, in a sharp, cheery voice. 
The man muttered something and passed 
on as though to the village. There had, 
however, been something in his position 
which made Gilmore think that the 
stranger had intended to trespass on his 
friend’s garden. He crossed the stile 
into the fields, however, without wait- 
ing-^without having waited for half a 
moment — and immediately saw the figure 
of a second man standing down, hidden 
as it were in the ditch ; and though he 
could discover no more than the cap and 
shoulders of the man through the gloom, 
he was sure he knew who it was that 
owned the cap and shoulders. He did 
not speak again, but passed on quickly, 
thinking what he might best do. The 
man whom he had seen and recognized 
had latterly been talked of as a discredit 
o his family, and anything but an honor 
to the usually respectable inhabitants of 
Bullhampton. 

On the farther side of the church from 


the town was a farmyard, in the occupa- 
tion of one of Lord Trowbridge’s ten- 
ants — a man who had ever been very 
keen at preventing the inroads of tres- 
passers, to which he had, perhaps, been 
driven by the fact that this land was 
traversed by various public pathways. 
Now a public pathway ‘ through pasture 
is a nuisance, as it is impossible to in- 
duce those who use it to keep them- 
selves to one beaten track ; but a path- 
way through cornfields is worse, for, let 
what pains may be taken, wheat, beans 
and barley will be torn down and tram- 
pled under foot. And yet in apportion- 
ing his rents, no landlord takes all this 
into consideration. Farmer Trumbull 
considered it a good deal, and w^as often 
a wrathful man. There was at any rate 
no right of way across his farmyard, and 
here he might keep as big a dog as he 
chose, chained or unchained. Harry 
Gilmore knew the dog well, and stood 
for a moment leaning on the gate. 

“ Who be there V' said the voice of 
the farmer. 

“Is that you, Mr. Trumbull? It is 
I — Mr. Gilmore. I want to get round 
to the front of the parson’s house.” 

“ Zurely, zurely,” said the farmer, com- 
ing forward and opening the gate. “ Be 
there anything wrong about, squire ?” 

“ I don’t know. I think there is. 
Speak softly. I fancy there are men 
lying in the churchyard.” 

“ I be a-thinking so, too, squire. 
Bone’m was a growling just now like 
the Old ’Un.” Bone’m was the name 
of the bull-dog as to which Gilmore had 
been solicitous as he looked over the 
gate. “What is’t t’ey’re up to ? Not 
bugglary.” 

“ Our friend’s apricots, perhaps. But 
I’ll just move round to the front. Do 
you and Bone’m keep a lookout here.” 

“Never fear, squire; never fear. Me 
and Bone’m together is a’most too much 
for ’em, bugglars and all.” Then he led 
Mr. Gilmore through the farmyard and 
out on to the road, Bone’m growling a 
low growl as he passed away. 

The squire hurried along the high 
road, past the church, and in at the 
vicarage front gate. Knowing the place 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


19 


ell, he could have made his way round 
into the garden, but he thought it better 
to go to the front door. There was no 
light to be seen from the windows, but 
almost all the rooms of the house looked 
out into the garden at the back. He 
knocked sharply, and in a minute or two 
the door was opened by the parson in 
person. 

“ Frank !” said the squire. 

“ Halloo, is that you 1 What’s up 
now ?” 

“ Men who ought to be in bed. I 
came across two men hanging about 
your gate in the churchyard, and I’m 
not sure there wasn’t a third.” 

“ They’re up to nothing. They often 
sit and smoke there.” 

“ These fellows were up to something. 
The man I saw plainest was a stranger, 
and just the sort of man who w'on’t do 
your parishioners any good to be among 
them. The other was Sam Brattle.” 

“ Whew-w-w !” said the parson. 

“ He has gone utterly to the dogs,” 
said the squire. 

“ He’s on the road, Harry ; but no- 
bpdy has gone while he’s still going. I 
had some words with him in his father’s 
presence last week, and he followed me 
afterward and told me he’d see it out 
with me. I wouldn’t tell you, because 
I didn’t want to set you more against 
them.” 

I wish they were out of the place — 
the whole lot of them.” 

“ I don’t know that they’d do better 
elsewhere than here. I suppose Mr. 
Sam is going to keep his word with 
me.” 

“ Only for the look of that other fel- 
low, I shouldn’t think they meant any- 
thing serious,”^said Gilmore. 

“ I don’t s^uppose they do, but I’ll be 
on the lookout.” 

Shall I stay with you, Frank ?” 

“ Oh no ; I’ve a life-preserver, and 
I’ll take a round of the gardens. You 
come with me, and you can pass home 
that way. The chances are they’ll miz- 
zle away to bed, as they’ve seen you and 
heard Bone’m, and probably heard, too, 
every word you said to Trumbull.” 

He then got his hat and the short, 
2 


thick stick of which he had spoken, and 
turning the key of the door, put it in his 
pocket. Then the two friends went 
round by the kitchen garden, and so 
through to the orchard, and down to the 
churchyard gate. Hitherto they had 
seen nothing and heard nothing, and 
Fenwick was sure that the men had 
made their way through the churchyard 
to the village. < 

“ But they may come back,” said 
Gilmore. 

« I’ll be about if they do,” said the 
parson. 

“What is one against three You 
had better let me stay.” 

Fenwick laughed at this, saying that 
it would be quite as rational to propose 
that they should keep watch every night. 

“ But, hark !” said the squire, with a 
mind evidently perturbed. 

“ Don’t you be alarmed about us,” 
said the parson. 

“ If anything should happen to Mary 
Lowther.” 

“ That, no doubt, is matter of anxiety, 
to which may, perhaps, be added some 
trifle of additional feeling on the score 
of Janet and the children. But I’ll do 
my best. If the women knew that you 
and I were patrolling the place, they’d 
be frightened out of their wits.” 

Then Gilmore, who never liked that 
there should be a laugh against himself, 
took his leave and walked home across 
the fields. Fenwick passed up through 
the garden, and, when he was near the 
terrace which ran along the garden front 
of the house, he thought that he heard a 
voice. He stood under the shade of a 
wall dark with ivy, and distinctly heard 
whispering on the other side of it. As 
far as he could tell there were the voices 
of more than two men. He wished now 
that he had kept Gilmore with him : not 
that he was personally afraid of the tres- 
passers, for his courage was of that 
steady, settled kind which enables the 
possessor to remember that men who are 
doing deeds of darkness are ever afraid 
of those whom they are injuring ; but 
had there been an ally with him, his 
prospect of catching one or more of the 
ruffians would have been greatly in- 


20 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


creased. Standing where he was, he 
would probably be able to interrupt them 
should they attempt to enter the house ; 
but in the mean time they might be strip- 
ping his fruit from the wall. They were 
certainly, at present, in the kitchen gar- 
den, and he was not minded to leave 
them there at such work as they might 
have in hand. Having paused to think 
of this, he crept along under the wall, 
close to the house, toward the passage 
by which he could reach them. But 
they had not heard him, nor had they 
waited among the fruit. When he was 
near the corner of the wall, one leading 
man came round within a foot or two of 
the spot on which he stood, and before 
he could decide on what he would do, 
the second had appeared. He rushed 
forward with the loaded stick in his 
hand, but, knowing its weight, and re- 
membering the possibility of the com- 
parative innocence of the intruders, he 
hesitated to strike. A blow on the head 
would have brained a man, and a knock 
on the arm with such an instrument 
would break the bone. In a moment 
he found his left hand on the leading 
man’s throat, and the man’s foot behind 
his heel. He fell, but as he fell he did 
strike heavily, cutting upward with his 
weapon, and bringing the heavy weight 
of lead at the end of it on to the man’s 
shoulder. He stumbled rather than fell, 
but when he regained his footing the 
man was gone. That man was gone, 
and two others were following him down 
toward the gate at the bottom of the 
orchard. Of these two, in a few strides, 
he was able to catch the hindermost, 
and then he found himself wrestling 
with Sam Brattle. 

“ Sam,” said he, speaking as well as 
he could with his short breath, “ if you 
don’t stand. I’ll strike you with the life- 
preserver.” 

Sam made another struggle, trying to 
seize the weapon, and the parson hit 
him with it on the right arm. 

“You’ve smashed that anyway, Mr. 
Fenwick,” said the man. 

“ I hope not ; but do you come along 
with me quietly or I’ll smash something 
else. I’ll hit you on the head if you 


attempt to move away. What were you 
doing here ?” 

Brattle made no answer, but walked 
along toward the house at the parson’s 
left hand, the parson holding him the 
while by the neck of his jacket and 
swinging the life-preserver in his right 
hand. In this way he took him round 
to the front of the house, and then be- 
gan to think what he would do with him. 

“ That, after all, you should be at this 
work, Sam !” 

“ What work is it, then ?” 

“ Prowling about my place, after mid- 
night, with a couple of strange black- 
guards.” 

“ There ain’t so much harm in that, 
as I knows of.” 

“ Who were the men, Sam ?” 

“ Who was the men ?” 

“Yes — who were they ?” 

“Just friends of mine, Mr. Fenwick. 
I sha’n’t say no more about ’em. 
You’ve got me, and you’ve smashed my 
arm, and now what is it you’re a-goiirg 
to do with me ? I ain’t done no harm 
— only just walked about, like.” 

To tell the truth, our friend the par- 
son did not quite know what he meant 
to do with the Tartar he had caught. 
There were reasons which made him 
very unwilling to hand over Sam Brattle 
to the village constable. Skm had a 
mother and sister who were among the 
vicar’s first favorites in the parish ; and 
though old Jacob Brattle, the father, was 
not so great a favorite, and was a man 
whom the squire, his landlord, held in 
great disfavor, Mr. Fenwick would de- 
sire, if possible, to spare the family. 
And of Sam himself he had had high 
hopes, though those hopes, for the last 
eighteen months, had l?een becoming 
fainter and fainter. Upon the whole, he 
was much adverse to knocking up the 
groom, the only man who lived on the 
parsonage except himself, and dragging 
Sam into the village. “I wish I knew,” 
he said, “what you and your friends 
were going to do. I hardly think it 
has come to that with you that you’d 
try to break into the house and cut our 
throats.” 

“We warn’t after no breaking in, nor 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


21 


no cutting of throats, Mr. Fenwick. 
We warn’t indeed !” 

“What shall you do with' yourself, 
to-night, if I let you off ?” 

“Just go home to father’s, sir : not a 
foot else, s’help me !” 

“ One of your friends, as you call 
them, will have to go to the doctor, if I 
am not very much mistaken ; for the rap 
I gave you was nothing to what he got. 
You’re all right.” 

“ It hurt, sir, I can tell ye ; but that 
won’t matter.” 

“ Well, Sam — there ; you may go. I 
shall be after you to-morrow, and the 
last word I say to you to-night is this — 
as far as I can see, you’re on the road 
to the gallows. It isn’t pleasant to be 
hung, and I would advise you to change 
your road.” So saying, he let go his 
hold and stood waiting till Sam should 
have taken his departure. 

“ Don’t be a-coming after me, to-mor- 
row, parson, please,” said the man. 

“ I shall see your mother, certainly.” 

“ Dont’ee tell her of my being here, 
Mr. Fenwick, and nobody sha’n’t ever 
come anigh this place again — not in the 
way of prigging anything.” 

“ You fool, you !” said the parson. 
“ Do you think that it is to save any- 
thing that I might lose that I let you go 
now ? Don’t you know that the thing I 
want to save is you — you — you ? — you 
helpless, idle, good-for-nothing repro- 
bate ! Go home, and be sure that I 
shall do the best I can according to my 
lights. I fear that my lights are bad 
lights, in that they have allowed me to 
let you go.” 

When he had seen Sam take his de- 
parture through the front gate, he re- 
turned to the house, and found that his 
wife, who had gone to bed, had come 
down stairs in search of him. 

“Frank, you have frightened me so 
terribly ! Where have you been ?” 

“ Thief-catching. And I’m afraid I’ve 
about split one fellow’s back. I caught 
another, but I let him go.” 

“ What on earth do you mean, 
Frank 

Then he told her the whole story — 
rtow Gilmore had seen the men and 


had come up to him ; how he had gone 
out and had a tussle with one man, whom 
he had, as he thought, hurt ; and how 
he had then caught another, while the 
third escaped. 

“We ain’t safe in our beds, then,” 
said the wife. 

“You ain’t safe in yours, my dear, 
because you chose to leave it, but I hope 
you’re safe out of it. I doubt whether 
the melons and peaches are safe. The 
truth is, there ought to be a gardener’s 
cottage on the place, and I must build 
one. I wonder whether I hurt that fel- 
low much. I seemed to hear the bone 
crunch.” 

“ Oh, Frank !” 

“ But what could I do ? I got that 
thing because I thought it safer than a 
pistol, but I really think it’s worse. I 
might have murdered them all, if I’d lost 
my temper — and just for half a dozen 
apricots !” 

“ And what became of the rhan you 
took ?” 

“ I let him go.” 

“ Without doing anything to him ?” 

“ Well, he got a tap, too.” 

“ Did you know him ?” 

“Yes, I knew him — well.” 

“ Who was he, Frank ?” 

The parson was silent for a moment, 
and then he answered her : “ It was 
Sam Brattle.” 

“ Sam Brattle, coming to rob ?” 

“ He’s been at it, I fear, for months, 
in some shape.” 

“ And what shall you do ?” 

“ I hardly know as yet. It would 
about kill her and Fanny, if they were 
told all that I suspect. They are stiff- 
necked, obstinate, ill-conditioned people 
— that is, the men. But I think Gil- 
more has been a little hard on them. 
The father and brothers are honest men. 
Come ! we’ll go to bed.” 


CHAPTER IV. 

THERE IS NO ONE ELSE. 

On the following morning there was 
of course a considerable amount of con- 
versation at the vicarage as to the affair 


22 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


of the previous evening. There w^as 
first of all an examination of the fruit ; 
but as this was made without taking 
Jem the gardener into confidence, no 
certain conclusion could be reached. It 
was clear, however, that no robbery for 
the purpose of sale had been made. An 
apricot or two might have been taken, 
and perhaps an assault made on an un- 
ripe peach. Mr. Fenwick was himself 
nearly sure that garden spoliation was 
not the purpose of the assailants, though 
it suited him to let his wife entertain that 
idea. The men would hardly have come 
from the kitchen garden up to the house 
and round by the corner at which he 
had met them, if they were seeking fruit. 
Presuming it to have been their inten- 
tion to attempt the drawing-room win- 
dows, he would have expected to meet 
them as he did meet them. From the 
garden the vicar and the two ladies went 
down to the gate, and from thence over 
the stile to Farmer Trumbull’s farmyard. 
The farmer had not again seen the men 
after the squire had left him, nor had he 
heard them. To him the parson said 
nothing of his encounter and nothing 
of that blow on the man’s back. From 
thence Mr. Fenwick went on to the 
town and the ladies returned to the 
vicarage. 

The only person whom the parson at 
once consulted was the surgeon — Dr. 
Cuttenden, as he was called. No man 
with an injured shoulder-blade had come 
to him last night or that morning. A man, 
he said, might receive a very violent blow 
on his back, in the manner in which the 
fellow had been struck, and might be 
disabled for days from any great per- 
sonal exertion, without having a bone 
broken. If the blade of his shoulder 
were broken, the man — so thought the 
doctor — would not travel far on foot, 
would hardly be able to get away to any 
of the neighboring towns unless he were 
carried. Of Sam Brattle the parson 
said nothing to the doctor, but when he 
had finished his morning’s work about 
the town, he walked on to the mill. 

In the mean time, the two ladies re- 
mained at home at the parsonage. The 
excitement occasioned by the events of 


the previous night was probably a little 
damaged by the knowledge that Mr. 
Gilmore was coming. The coming of 
Mr. Gilmore on this occasion was so 
important that even the terrible idea of 
burglars, and the sensation arising from 
the use of that deadly weapon which had 
been produced at the breakfast-table dur- 
ing the morning, were robbed of some 
of their interest. They did not keep 
possession of the minds of the two ladies 
as they would have done had there been 
no violent interrupting cause. But here 
was the violent interrupting cause, and 
by the time that lunch was on the table, 
Sam Brattle and his comrades were for- 
gotten. 

Very little was said between the two 
women on that morning respecting Mr. 
Gilmore. Mrs. Fenwick, who had al- 
lowed herself to be convinced that Mary 
would act with great impropriety if she 
did not accept the man, thought that 
further speech might only render her 
friend obstinate. Mary, who knew the 
inside of her friend’s mind very clearly, 
and who loved and respected her friend, 
could hardly fix her own mind. During 
the past night it had been fixed, or 
nearly fixed, two different ways. She 
had first determined that she would re- 
fuse her lover — as to which resolve, for 
some hours or so, she had been very 
firm ; then that she would accept him — 
as to which she had ever, when most 
that way inclined, entertained some 
doubt as to the possibility of her utter- 
ing that word “Yes.” If it be that 
other women don’t love better than 1 
love him, I wonder that they ever get 
married at all, she said to herself. She 
was told that she was wrong to keep the 
man in suspense, and she believed it. 
Had she not been so told, she would 
have thought that some further waiting 
would have been of the three alternatives 
the best. 

“ I shall be up stairs with the bairns,’ 
said Mrs. Fenwick, as she left the dining- 
room after lunch, “ so that if you prefer 
the garden to the drawing-room, it will 
be free.” 

“ Oh dear ! how solemn and ceremon- 
ious you make it !” 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


23 


“It is solemn, Mary : I don’t know 
how anything can be more solemn, short 
of going to heaven or the other place. 
But I really don’t see why there should 
be any doubt or difficulty.” 

There was something in the tone in 
which these words were said which al- 
most made Mary Lowther again decide 
against the man. The man had a home 
and an income and was squire of the 
parish ; and therefore there need be no 
difficulty ! When she compared Mr. 
Fenwick and Mr. Gilmore together, she 
found that she liked Mr. Fenwick the 
best. She thought him to be the more 
clever, the higher-spirited, the most of a 
man of the two. She certainly was not 
the least in love with her friend’s hus- 
band, but then she was just as little in 
love with Mr. Gilmore. 

At about half-past two Mr. Gilmore 
made his appearance, standing at the 
open window. “ May I come in ?” he 
said. 

“ Of course you may come in.” 

“Mrs. Fenwick is not here ?” 

“ She is in the house, I think, if you 
want her.” 

“ Oh no. I hope you were not fright- 
ened last night. I have not seen Frank 
this morning, but I hear from Mr. 
Trumbull that there was something of a 
row.” 

“There was a row, certainly. Mr. 
Fenwick struck some of the men, and 
he is afraid that he hurt one of them.” 

“ I wish he had broken their heads. 
I take it there was a son of one of 
my tenants there, who is about as bad 
as he can be. Frank will believe me, 
now. I hope you were not frightened 
here.” 

“ I heard nothing of it till this morn- 
ing,” answered Mary. 

After that there was a pause. He 
had told himself as he came along that 
the task before him could not be easy 
* and pleasant. To declare a passion to 
the girl he loves may be very pleasant 
work to the man who feels almost sure 
"hat his answer will not be against him. 
It may be an easy task enough even 
when there is a doubt. I'he very pos- 
session of the passion — or even its pre- 


tence — gives the man a liberty which he 
has a pleasure and a pride in using. 
But this is the case when the man dashes 
boldly at his purpose without precon- 
certed arrangements. Such pleasure, if 
it ever was a pleasure to him — such ex- 
citement at least — was come and gone 
with Harry Gilmore. He had told his 
tale and had been desired to wait. Now 
he had come again at a fixed hour to be 
informed — like a servant waiting for a 
place — whether it was thought that he 
would suit. The servant out of place, 
however, would have had this advantage, 
that he would receive his answer with- 
out the necessity of further eloquence on * 
his own part. With the lover it was 
different. It was evident that Mary 
Lowther would not say to him, “ I have 
considered the matter, and I think that, 
upon the whole, you will do.” It was 
necessary that he should ask the ques- 
tion again, and ask it as a suppliant. 

“ Mary,” he said, beginning with words 
that he had fixed for himself as he came 
up the garden, “ it is six weeks, I think, 
since I asked you to be my wife ; and 
now I have come to ask you again.” 
She made him no immediate answer, but 
sat as though waiting for some further 
effort of his eloquence. “ I do not think 
you doubt my truth or the warmth of 
my affection. If you trust in them — ” 

“ I do— I do.” 

“ Then I don’t know that I can say 
anything further. Nothing that I can 
say now will make you love me. I have 
not that sort of power which would com- 
pel a girl to come into my arms.” 

“ I don’t understand that kind of 
power — how any man can have it with 
any girl.” 

“ They say that it is so ; but I do not 
flatter myself that it is so with me ; and 
I do not think that it would be so with 
any man over you. Perhaps I may as- 
sure you that, as far as I know myself 
at present, all my future happiness must 
depend on your answer. It will not kill 
me to be refused ; at least, I suppose not. 
But it will make me wish that it would.” 
Having so spoken he waited for her 
reply. 

She believed every word that he said. 


24 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


And she liked him so well that, for his 
own sake, she desired that he might be 
gratified. As far as she knew herself 
she had no desire to be Harry Gilmore’s 
wife. The position was not even one in 
which she could allow herself to look for 
consolation on one side for disappoint- 
ments on the other. She had read about 
love, and talked about love, and she de- 
sired to be in love. Certainly she was 
not in love with this man. She had be- 
gun to doubt whether it would ever be 
given to her to love — to love as her 
friend Janet loved Frank Fenwick, 
Janet loved her husband’s very foot- 
steps, and seemed to eat with his palate, 
hear with his ears and see with his eyes. 
She was, as it were, absolutely a bone 
from her husband’s rib. Mary thought 
that she was sure that she could never 
have that same feeling toward Henry 
Gilmore. And yet it might come ; or 
something might come which would do 
almost as well. It was likely that 
Janet’s nature was softer and sweeter 
than her own — more prone to adapt 
itself, like ivy to a strong tree. For 
herself, it might be that she could never 
become as the ivy, but that nevertheless 
she might be the true wife of a true hus- 
band. But if ever she was to be the 
true wife of Harry Gilmore, she could 
not to-day say that it should be so. 

« I suppose I must answer you,” she 
said, very gently. 

“If you tell me that you are not ready 
to do so I will wait, and come again. I 
shall never change my mind. You may 
be sure of that.” 

“ But that is just what I may not do, 
Mr. Gilmore.” 

“ Who says so ?” 

“ My own feelings tell me so. I have 
no right to keep you in suspense, and I 
will not do it. I respect and esteem 
you most honestly. I have so much 
liking for you that I do not mind own- 
ing that I wish that it were more. Mr. 
Gilmore, I like you so much that I 
would make a great sacrifice for you ; 
but I cannot sacrifice my own honesty 
or your happiness by making believe 
that I love you.” 

Fo^a few moments he sat silent, and 


then there came over his face a look of 
inexpressible anguish — a look as though 
the pain were almost more than he could 
bear. She could not keep her eyes from 
his face ; and, in her woman’s pity, she 
almost wished that her words had been 
different. • 

“ And must that be all he asked. 

“ What else can I say, Mr. Gilmore ?” 

" “ If that must be all, it will be to me 

a doom that I shall not know how to 
bear. I cannot live here without you. 

I have thought about you, till you have 
become mixed with every tree and every 
cottage about the place. I did not know 
of myself that I could become such a 
slave to a passion. Mary, say that you 
will wait again. Try it once more. I 
would not ask for this, but that you have 
told me that there was no one else.” 

“ Certainly, there is no one else.” 

“Then let me wait again. It can do 
you no harm. If there should come any 
man more fortunate than I am, you can 
tell me, and I shall know that it is over. 

I ask no sacrifice from you, and no 
pledge ; but I give you mine. I shall 
not change.” 

“There must be no such promise, 
Mr. Gilmore.” 

“ But there is the promise. I cer- 
tainly shall not change. When three 
months are over I will come to you 
again.” 

She tried to think whether she was 
bound to tell him that her answer must 
be taken as final, or whether she might 
allow the matter to stand as he pro- 
posed, with some chance of a result that 
might be good for him. On one point 
she was quite sure — that if she left him 
now, with an understanding that he 
should again renew his offer after a 
period of three months, she must go 
away from Bullhampton. If there was 
any possibility that she should learn to 
love him, such feeling would arise within 
her more quickly in his absence than in * 
his presence. She would go home to 
Boring, and try to bring herself to accept 
him. 

“ I think,” she said, “ that what we 
now say had better be the last of it.” 

“It shall not be the last of it. I will 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


23 


try again. What is there that I can do, 
so that I may make myself worthy of 
you ?” 

“ It is no question of worthiness, Mr. 
Gilmore. Who can say how his heart 
is moved — and why? I shall go home 
to Loring ; and you may be sure of this, 
that if there be anything that you should 
hear of me, I will let you know.” 

Then he took her hand in his own, 
held it for a while, pressed it to his lips 
and left her. She was by no means 
contented with herself, and, to tell the 
truth, was ashamed to let her friend 
know what she had done. And yet how 
could she have answered him in other 
words? It. might be that she could 
teach ‘herself to be contented with the 
amount of regard' which she entertained 
for him. It might be that she could 
persuade herself to be his wife ; and if 
so, why should he not have the chance — 
the chance which he professed that he 
was so anxious to retain ? He had paid 
her the greatest compliment which a man 
can pay a woman, and she owed him 
everything — except herself. She was 
hardly sure even now that if the propo- 
sition had come to her by letter the an- 
swer might not have been of a different 
nature. 

As soon as he was gone she went up 
stairs to the nursery, and thence to Mrs. 
Fenwick’s bed-room. Flo was there, 
but Flo was soon dismissed. Mary be- 
gan her story instantly, before a ques- 
tion could be asked. 

“Janet,” she said, “ I am going home 
— at once.” 

“ Why so ?” 

“ Because it is best. Nothing more 
is settled than was settled before. When 
he asks me whether he may come again, 
how can I say that he may not ? What 
can I say, except that as far as I can see 
now I cannot be his wife ?” 

“You have not accepted him, then ?” 

“No.” 

“ I believe that you would if he had 
asked you last night.” 

“ Most certainly I should not. I may 
doubt when I am talking behind his 
back ; but when I meet him face to face 
I cannot do it.” 


“ I think you have been wrong — very 
wrong and very foolish.” 

“In not taking a man I do not love ?” 
said Mary. 

“ You do love him ; but you are long- 
ing for you do not know what : some 
romance — some grand passion — some- 
thing that will never come.” 

“ Shall I tell you what I want ?” 

“ If you please.” > 

“ A feeling such as you have for Frank. 
You are my model : I want nothing be- 
yond that.” 

“That comes after marriage. Frank 
was very little to me till we were man 
and wife. He’ll tell you the same." I 
don’t know whether I didn’t almost dis- 
like him when I married him.” • 

“ Oh, Janet !” 

“ Certainly the sort of love you are 
thinking of comes afterward, when the 
interests of two people are the same. 
Frank was very well as a lover.” 

“ Don’t I remember it ?” 

“ You were a child.” 

« I was fifteen ; and don’t I remem- 
‘ber how all the world used to change 
for you when he was coming ? There 
wasn’t a ribbon you wore but what you 
wore for him ; you dressed yourself in 
his eyes ; you lived by his thoughts.” 

“ That was all after I was engaged. 
If you would accept Harry Gilmore, you 
would do just the same.” 

“ I must be sure that it would be so. 
I am now almost sure that it would 
not.” 

“And why do you want to go home.?” 

“That he' may not be pestered by 
having me near him. I think it will be 
better for him that I should go.” 

“ And he is to ask you again ?” 

“ He says that he will — in three 
months. But you should tell him that 
it will be better that he should not. I 
would advise him to travel, if I were 
his friend like you.” 

“And leave all his duties, and his 
pleasures, and his house, and his pro- 
perty, because of your face and figure, 
my dear ! I don’t think any woman is 
worth so much to a man.” 

Mary bit her lips in sorrow for what 
she had said : “ I was thinking of his 


26 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


own speech about himself, Janet — not 
of my worth. It does not astonish you 
more than it does me that such a man 
as Mr. Gilmore should be perplexed in 
spirit for such a cause. But he says 
that he is perplexed.” 

“ Of course he is perplexed, and of 
course I was in joke. Only it does 
seem so hard upon him ! I should like 
to shake you till you fell into his arms. 
I know it would be best for you. You 
will go on examining your own feelings 
and doubting about your heart, and 
waiting for something that will never 
come, till you will have lost your time. 
That is the way old maids are made. 
If you married Harry, by the time your 
first child was b'orn you would think 
that he was Jupiter — ^just as I think that 
Frank is.” 

Mrs. Fenwick owned, however, that 
as matters stood at present it would be 
best that Mary should return home ; 
and letters were written that afternoon 
to say that she would be at Loring by 
the middle of next week. 

The vicar was not seen till dinner- 
time, and then, he came hoine in con- 
siderable perplexity of spirit. It was 
agreed between the two women that the 
face of Harry Gilmore, as far as it had 
been decided, should be told to Mr. 
Fenwick by his wife ; and she, though 
she was vexed and almost angry with 
Mary, promised to make the best of it. 

« She’ll lose him at last; that’ll be the 
end of it,” said the parson, as he scoured 
his face with a towel after washing if. 

“ I never saw a man so much in love 
in my life,” said Mrs. Fenwick. 

“ But iron won’t remain long at red 
heat,” said he. “What she says her- 
self would be the best for him. He’ll 
break up and go away for a time, and 
then, when he comes back, there’ll be 
somebody else. She’ll live to repent it.” 

“When she’s away from him there 
may be a change.” 

“ Fiddlestick !” said the parson. Mary, 
when she met him before dinner, could 
see that he was angry with her, but she 
bore it with the utmost meekness. She 
believed of herself that she was much to 
blame in that she could not fall in love 


with Harry Gilmore. Mrs. Fenwick had 
also asked a question or two about Sam 
Brattle during the dressing of her hus- 
band, but he had declined to say any- 
thing on that subject till they two should 
be secluded together for the night. 


CHAPTER V. 

THE MILLER. 

Mr. Fenwick reached Brattle’s mill 
about two o’clock in the day. During 
the whole morning, while saying com- 
fortable words to old women and gently 
rebuking young maidens, he had been 
thinking of Sam Brattle and his offences. 
He had not been in the parish very long 
— not over five or six years — but he had 
been there long enough to see Sam grow 
out of boyhood into manhood ; and at 
his first coming to the parish, for the 
first two or three years, the lad had been 
a favorite with him. Young Brattle 
could run well, leap well, fish well, and 
do a good turn of work about his father’s 
mill. And he could also read and write 
and cast accounts, and was a clever fel- 
low. The parson, though he had tried 
his hand with energy at making the man, 
had, perhaps, done something toward 
marring him ; and it may be that some 
feeling of this was on Mr. Fenwick’s 
conscience. A gentleman’s favorite in 
a country village, when of Sam Brattle’s 
age, is very apt to be spoiled by the 
kindness that is shown to him. Sam had 
spent many a long afternoon fishing with 
the parson, but those fishing days were 
now more than two years gone by. It 
had been understood that Sam was to 
assist his father at the mill ; and much 
good advice as to his trade the lad had 
received from Mr. Fenwick. There ought 
to be no more fishing for the young mil- 
ler, except on special holiday occasions 
— no more fishing, at least during the 
hours required for milling purposes. So 
Mr. Fenwick had said frequently. Nev- 
ertheless the old miller attributed his 
son’s idleness in great part to the par- 
son’s conduct, and he had so told the 
parson more than once. Of late, Sam 
Brattle had certainly not been a good 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


2; 


son, had neglected his work, disobeyed 
his father, and brought trouble on a 
household which had much suffering to 
endure independently of :that which he 
might bring upon it. 

Jacob Brattle was a man at this time 
over sixty-five years of age, and every 
year of the time had been spent in that 
mill. He had never known another oc- 
cupation or another home, and had very 
rarely slept under another roof. He had 
married the daughter of a neighboring 
farmer, and had had some twelve or 
fourteen children. There were at this 
time' six still living. He himself had 
ever been a hardworking, sober, honest 
man. But he was cross-grained, litig- 
ious, moody and tyrannical. He held 
his mill and about a hundred acres 
of adjoining meadow-land at a rent in 
which no account was taken either of 
the building or of the mill privileges at- 
tached to it. He paid simply for the 
land at a rate per acre, which, as both 
he and his landlord well knew, would 
make it acceptable on the same terms to 
any farmer in the parish ; and neither 
for his mill nor for his land had he any 
lease, nor had his father or his grand- 
father had leases before him. Though 
he was a clever man in his way, he hard- 
ly knew what a lease v.as. He doubted 
whether his landlord could dispossess 
him as long as he paid his rent, but he 
was not sure. But of he thought 
he was sure — that were Mr. Gilmore to 
attempt to do such a thing, all Wiltshire 
would cry out against the deed, and 
probably the heavens would fall and 
crush the doer. He was a man wi.h an 
unlimited love of justice, but the justice 
which he loved best was justice to him- 
self. He brooded over injuries done to 
him — injuries real or fancied — till he 
taught himself to wish that all who hurt 
him might be crucified for the hurt they 
did to him. He never forgot, and never 
wished to foigive. If any prayer came 
from him, it was a prayer that his own 
heart might be so hardened that when 
vengeance came in his way he might 
take it without stint against the tres- 
passer of the moment. And yet he was 
not a cruel man. He would almost de- 


spise himself because when the moment 
for vengeance did come he would abstain 
from vengeance. He would dismiss a 
disobedient servant with curses which 
would make one’s hair stand on end, and 
would hope within his heart of hearts 
that before the end of the next week the 
man with his wife and children might be 
in the poorhouse. When the end of the 
next week came, he would send the wife 
meat and would give the children bread, 
and would despise himself for doing so. 
In matters of religion he was an old 
pagan, going to no place of worship, 
saying no prayer, believing in no creed 
— with some vague idea that a Supreme 
Power would bring him right at last if 
he worked hard, robbed no one, fed his 
wife and children and paid his way. To 
pay his way was the pride of his heart — 
to be paid on his way was its joy. 

In that matter of his quarrel with his 
landlord he was very bitter. The squire’s 
father some fifteen years since had given 
to the miller a verbal promise that the 
house and mill should be repaired. The 
old squire had not been a good man of 
business, and had gone on with his ten- 
ants very much as he had found them, 
without looking much into the position 
of each. But he had, no doubt, said 
something that amounted to a promise 
on his own account as to these repairs. 
He had died soon after, and the repairs 
had not been effected. A year after his 
death an application — almost a demand — 
was made upon our squire by the miller, 
and the miller had been wrathful even 
when the squire said that he would look 
into it. The squire did look into it, and 
came to the conclusion that as he re- 
ceived no rent at all for the house and 
mill, and as his own property would be 
improved if the house and mill were 
made to vanish, and as he had no evi- 
dence whatever of any undertaking on 
his father’s part, as any such promise on 
his father’s part must simply have been 
a promise of a gift of money out of his 
own pocket, and further as the miller 
was impudent, he would not repair the 
mill. Ultimately, he offered twenty 
pounds toward the repairs, which the 
miller indignantly refused. Readers will 


28 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMFTON. 


be able to imagine how pretty a quarrel 
there would thus be between the land- 
lord and his tenant. When all this was 
commencing — at the time, that is, of the 
old squire’s death — Brattle had the name 
of being a substantial person, but mis- 
fortune had come upon him ; doctors’ 
bills had been very heavy, his children 
had drained his resources from him, and 
it was now known that it set him very 
hard to pay his way. In regard to the 
house and the mill, some absolutely 
essential repairs had been done at his 
own costs ; but the twenty pounds had 
never been taken. 

In some respects the man’s fortune 
in life had been good. His wife was 
one of those loving, patient, self-denying, 
almost heavenly human beings, one or 
two of whom may come across one’s 
path, and who, when found, are generally 
found in that sphere of life to which this 
woman belonged. Among the rich there 
is that difficulty of the needle’s eye : 
among the poor there is the difficulty of 
the hardness of their lives. And the 
miller loved this woman with a perfect 
love. He hardly knew that he loved her 
as he did. He could be harsh to her 
and tyrannical. He could say cutting 
words to her. But at any time in his 
life he would have struck over the head 
with his staff another man who should 
have said a word to hurt her. They 
had lost many children, but of the six . 
who remained there were four of whom 
they might be proud. The eldest was 
a farmer, married and away, doing well 
jn a far part of the county, beyond 
Salisbury, on the borders of Hampshire. 
The father in his emergencies had al- 
most been tempted to ask his son for 
money, but hitherto he had refrained. 
A daughter was married to a tradesman 
at Warminster, and was also doing well. 
A second son, who had once been sickly 
and weak, was a scholar in his way, and 
was now a schoolmaster, also at War- 
minster, and in great repute with the 
parson of the parish there. There was 
a second daughter, Fanny, at home — a 
girl as. good as gold, the glory and joy 
and mainstay of her mother, whom even 
the miller could not scold, whom all 


Bullhampton loved. But she was a 
plain girl, brown, and somewhat hard- 
visaged — a morsel of fruit as sweet as 
any in the garden, but one that the eye 
would not select for its outside grace, 
color and roundness. Then there were 
the two younger. Of Sam, the young- 
est of all, who was now twenty-one, 
something has already been 'said. Be- 
tween him and Fanny there was — per- 
haps it will be better to say there had 
been — another daughter. Of all the 
flock. Carry had been her father’s dar- 
ling. She had not been brown or hard- 
visaged. She was such a morsel of 
fruit as men do choose when allowed to 
range and pick through the whole length 
of the garden wall. Fair she had been, 
with laughing eyes and floating curls — 
strong in health, generous in temper, 
though now and again with something 
of her father’s humor.’ To her mother’s 
eye she had never been as sweet as 
Fanny, but to her father she had been 
as bright and beautiful as the harvest 
moon. Now she was a thing, some- 
where, never to be mentioned ! Any 
man who would have named her to her 
father’s ears would have encountered 
instantly the force of his wrath. This 
was so well known in Bullhampton that 
there was not one who would dare to 
suggest to him even that she might be 
saved. But her mother prayed for her 
daily, and her father thought of her 
always. It was a great lump upon him, 
which he must bear to his grave, and 
for which there could be no release. 
He did not know whether it was his 
mind, his heart or his body that suffered. 
He only knew that it was there — a load 
that could never be lightened. What 
comfort was it to him now thg,t he had 
beaten a miscreant to death’s door — that 
he, with his old hands, had nearly torn 
the wretch limb from limb — that he had 
left him all but lifeless, and had walked 
off scatheless, nobody daring to put a 
finger on him 1 The man had been 
pieced up by some doctor, and was 
away in Asia, in Africa, in America- — 
soldiering somewhere. He had been a 
lieutenant in those days, and was prob- 
ably a lieutenant still. It was nothing 


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The Miller and Mr. Fenwick . — [Page 29.] 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


29 


to old Brattle where he was. Had he 
been able to drink the fellow’s blood to 
the last drop, it would not have light- 
ened his load an ounce. He knew that 
it was so now. Nothing could lighten 
it — not though an angel could come and 
tell him that his girl was a second Mag- 
dalen. The Brattles had ever held up 
their heads. The women, at least, had 
always been decent. 

Jacob Brattle, himself, was a low, 
thickset man, with an appearance of 
great strength, which was now sub- 
mitting itself, very slowly, to the hand 
of time.' He had sharp green eyes and 
shaggy eyebrows, with thin lips and a 
square chin — a nose which, though its 
shape was aquiline, protruded but little 
from his face. His* forehead was low 
and broad, and he was seldom seen 
without a flat hat upon his head. His 
hair and very scanty whiskers were gray, 
but then, too, he was gray from head to 
foot. The color of his trade had so 
clung to him that no one could say 
whether that grayish whiteness of his 
face came chiefly from meal or from 
sorrow. He was a silent, sad, medita- 
tive man, thinking always of the evil 
things that had been done to him. 


CHAPTER VI. 
brattle’s mill. 

When Mr. Fenwick reached the mill 
he found old Brattle sitting alone on a 
fixed bench in front of the house door, 
with a pipe in his mouth. Mary Lowther 
was quite right in saying that the mill, 
in spite of its dilapidations — perhaps by 
leason of them — was as pretty as any- 
thing in Bullhampton. In the first place, 
it was permeated and surrounded by 
cool, bright, limpid little streams. One 
of them ran right through it, as it were, 
passing between the dwelling-house and 
the mill, and turning the wheel, which 
was there placed. This course was no 
doubt artificial, and the water ran more 
rapidly in it than it did in the neighbor- 
ing streamlets. There were sluice-gates 
too, by which it could be altogether ex- 
pelled, or kept up to this or that height ; 


and it was a river absolutely under man’s 
control, in which no water-god could 
take delight. But there were other nat- 
ural streams on each side of the build- 
ing, the one being the main course of 
the Avon, and the other some offspring 
of a brooklet, which joined its parent 
two hundred yards below, and fifty yards 
from the spot at which the ill-used work- 
ing water was received back into its 
mother’s idle bosom. Mill and house 
were thatched, and were very low. 
There were garrets in the roof, but they 
were so shaped that they could hardly 
be said to have walls to them at all, so 
nearly were they contained by the slop- 
ing roof. In front of the building there 
ran a road, which, after all, was no more 
than a private lane. It crossed the 
smaller stream and the mill- run by two 
wooden bridges ; but the river itself had 
been too large for the bridge-maker’s 
efforts, and here there was a ford, with 
stepping-stones for foot passengers. The 
banks on every side were lined with 
leaning willows, which had been pollard- 
ed over and over again, and which with 
their light green wavy heads gave the 
place, from a distance, the appearance 
of a grove. There was a little porch in 
front of the house, and outside of that a 
fixed seat, with a high back, on which 
old Brattle was sitting when the parson 
accosted him. He did not rise when 
Mr. Fenwick addressed him, but he in- 
tended no want of courtesy by not doing 
so. He was on his legs at business 
during nearly the whole of the day, and 
why should he not rest his old limbs 
during the few- mid-day minutes which 
he allowed himself for recreation 

“ I thought I should catch you idle 
just at this moment,” said the clergyman. 

“ Like enough, Muster Fenwick,” said 
the miller ; “ I 'be idle at times, no 
doubt.” 

“ It would be a bad life if you did not 
— and a very short one too. It’s hot 
walking, I can tell you, Mr. Brattle. If 
it goes on like this, I shall make a 
little idle time myself, I fear. Is Sam 
here ?” 

“ No, Muster Fenwick, Sam is not 
here.” 


30 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


Nor ?^as been this morning, I sup- 
pose ?” 

“ He’s not here now, if you’re wanting 
him.” 

This the old man said in a tone that 
seemed to signify some offence, or at 
least a readiness to take offence if more 
were said to him about his son. The 
clergyman did not sit down, but stood 
close over the father, looking down upon 
him ; and the miller went on with his 
pipe, gazing into the clear blue sky. 

“ I do want him, Mr. Brattle.” Then 
he stopped, and there was a pause. The 
miller puffed his pipe, but said not a 
word. “ I do want him. I fear, Mr. 
Brattle, he’s not coming to much good.” 

“ Who said as he was ? I never said 
so. The lad’d have been well enough 
if other folks would have let him be.” 

“ I know what you mean, Mr. Brattle.” 

“ I usually intend folks to know what 
I mean. Muster Fenwick. What’s the 
good o’ speaking else. If nobody hadn’t 
a-meddled with the lad, he’d been a good 
lad. But they did, and he ain’t. That’s 
all about it.” 

“ You do me a great injustice, but I’m 
not going to argue that with you now. 
There would be no use in it. I’ve come 
to tell you I fear that Sam was at no 
good last night.” 

“ That’s like enough.” 

“ I had better tell you the truth at 
once. He was about my place with two 
ruffians.” 

“ And you wants to take him afore the 
magistrate ?” 

« I want nothing of the kind. I would 
make almost any sacrifice rather. I had 
him yesterday night by the collar of the 
coat, and I let him go free.” 

“If he couldn’t shake himself free o’ 
you. Muster Fenwick, without any letting 
in the matter, he ain’t no son of mine.” 

“ I was armed, and he couldn’t. But 
what does that matter ? What does 
matter is this — that they who were with 
him were thoroughly bad fellows. Was 
he at home last night ?” 

“You’d better ax his mother. Muster 
Fenwick. The truth is, I don’t care 
much to be talking of him at all. It’s 
time I was in the mill, I believe. There’s 


no one much to help me now, barring the 
hired man.” So saying he got up and 
passed into the mill without making the 
slightest form of salutation. 

Mr. Fenwick paused for a minute, 
looking after the old man, and then 
went into the house. He knew very 
well that his treatment from the women 
would be very different to that which the 
miller had vouchsafed to him, but on 
that very account it would be difficult 
for him to make his communication. 
He had, however, known all this before 
he came. Old Brattle would, quite of 
course, be silent, suspicious and uncivil. 
It had become the nature of the man to 
be so, and there was no help for it. 
But the two women would be glad to 
see him — would accept his visit as a 
pleasure and a privilege ; and on this 
account he found it to be very hard to 
say unpleasant words to them. But 
the unpleasant words must be spoken. 
Neither in duty nor in kindness could 
he know what he had learned last night 
and be silent on this matter to the 
young man’s family. He entered the 
house, and turned into the large kitchen 
or keeping-room on the left, in which 
the two women were almost always to 
be found. This was a spacious, square, 
low apartment, in which there was a 
long grate with various appurtenances 
for boiling, roasting and baking. It was 
an old-fashioned apparatus, but Mrs. 
Brattle thought it to be infinitely more 
commodious than any of the newer- 
fangled ranges which from time to time 
she had been taken to see. Opposite 
to the fireplace there was a small ,piece 
of carpet, without which the stone floor 
would hardly have looked warm and 
comfortable. On the outer corner of 
this, half facing the fire and half on one 
side of it, was an old oak arm-chair, 
made of oak throughout, but with a well- 
worn cushion on the seat of it, in which 
it was the miller’s custom to sit when 
the work of the day was done. In this 
chair no one else would ever sit, unless 
Sam would do so occasionally in bra- 
vado, and as a protest against his father’s 
authority. When he did so his mother 
would be wretched, and his sister lately 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


31 


had begged him to desist from the sac- 
rilege. Close, to this was a little round 
deal table, on which would be set the 
miller’s single glass of gin and water, 
which would be made to last out the 
process of his evening’s smoking, and the 
candle, by the light of which, and with 
the aid of a huge pair of tortoise-shell 
spectacles, his wife would sit and darn 
her husband’s stockings. She also had 
her own peculiar chair in this corner, 
but she had never accustomed herself 
to the luxury of arms to lean on, and 
had no cushion for her own comfort. 
There were various dressers, tables and 
sideboards round the room, and a multi- 
plicity of dishes, plates and bowls, all 
standing in their proper places. But 
though the apartment was called a 
kitchen — and, in truth, the cooi:ery for 
the family was done here — there was 
behind it, opening out to the rear, an- 
other kitchen, in which there was a 
great boiler and a huge oven never now 
used. The necessary but unsightly do- 
ings of kitchen life were here carried on, 
out of view. He, indeed, would have 
been fastidious who would have hesi- 
tated, on any score of cleanliness or 
.niceness, to sit and eat at the long 
board on which the miller’s dinner was 
daily served, or would have found it 
amiss to sit at that fire and listen to the 
ticking of the great mahogany-cased 
clock which stood in the corner of the 
room. On the other side of the broad 
opening passage Mrs. Brattle had her 
parlor. Doubtless this parlor added 
something to the few joys of her life ; 
though how it did so, or why she should 
have rejoiced in it, it would be very 
difficult to say. She never entered it 
except for the purpose of cleaning and 
dusting. But it may be presumed that 
it was a glory to her to have a room 
carpeted, with six horsehair chairs, and 
a round table, and a horsehair sofa, and 
an old mirror over the fireplace, and 
a piece of worsted- work, done by her 
daughter and framed like a picture, hang- 
ing up on one of the walls. But there 
must have come from it, we should say, 
more of regret than of pleasure ; for 
when that room was first furnished un- 


der her own auspices, and when those 
horsehair chairs were bought with a por- 
tion of her own modest dowry, doubt- 
less she had intended that these luxuries 
should be used by her and hers. But 
they never had been so used. The day 
for using them had never come. Her 
husband never, by any chance, entered 
the apartment. To him probably, even 
in his youth, it had been a woman’s 
gewgaw, useless, but allowable as tend- 
ing to her happiness. Now the dooi 
was never even opened before his eye. 
His last interview with Carry had been 
in that room — when he had laid his 
curse upon her, and bade her begone 
before his return, so that his decent 
threshold should be no longer polluted 
by her vileness. 

On this side of the house there was a 
cross passage, dividing the front rooms 
from the back. At the end of this, 
looking to the front, so as to have the 
parlor between it and the house door, 
was the chamber in which slept Brattle 
and his wife. Here all those children 
had been born who had brought upon 
the household so many joys and so 
much sorrow. And behind, looking to 
the back on to the little plot of vegeta- 
bles which was called the garden — a 
plot in which it seemed that cabbages 
and gooseberry bushes were made to 
alternate — there was a large store-room 
and the chamber in which Fanny slept, 
now alone, but which she had once 
shared with four sisters. Carry was 
the last one that had left her ; and now 
Fanny hardly dared to name the word 
sister above her breath. She could 
speak, indeed, of Sister Jay, the wife of 
the prosperous ironmonger at War- 
minster, but of sisters by their Christian 
names no mention was ever made. 

Up stairs there were garrets, one of 
which was inhabited by Sam when he 
chose to reside at home, and another 
by the red-armed country lass who was 
maid-of-all-work at Brattle mill. When 
it has also been told that below the cab- 
bage-plot there was an orchard, stretch- 
ing down to the junction of the waters, 
the description of Brattle mill will have 
been made. 


32 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


CHAPTER VII. 

THE miller’s wife. 

When Mr. Fenwick entered the kitch- 
en, Mrs. Brattle was sitting there alone. 
Her daughter was away, disposing of 
the remnants and utensils of the dinner- 
table. The old lady, w'ith her spectacles 
on her nose, was sitting as usual with a 
stocking over her left arm. On the 
round table was a great open Bible, and 
lying on the Bible were sundry large 
worsted hose, which always seemed to 
Mr. Fenwick as though they must have 
undarned themselves as quickly as they 
were darned. Her Bible and her stock- 
ings furnished the whole of Mrs. Brat- 
tle’s occupation from her dinner to her 
bed. In the morning, she would still 
occupy herself in matters of cookery, 
would peel potatoes and prepare apples 
for puddings, and would look into the 
pot in which the cabbage was being 
boiled. But her stockings and her Bible 
shared together the afternoons of her 
week-days. On the Sundays there would 
only be the Bible, and then she would 
pass many hours of the day asleep. On 
every other Sunday morning she still 
walked to church and back — going there 
always alone. There was no one now 
to accompany her. Her husband never 
went — never had gone — to church, and 
her son now had broken away from his 
good practices. On alternate mornings 
Fanny went, and also on every Sunday 
afternoon. Wet or dry, storm or sun- 
shine, she always went ; and her father, 
who was an old pagan, loved her for her 
zeal. Mrs. Brattle was a slight-made 
old woman, with hair almost white peer- 
ing out modestly from under her clean 
cap, dressed always in a brown stuff 
gown that never came down below her 
ankle. Her features were still pretty, 
small and ddbonnaire, and there was a 
sweetness in her eyes that no observer 
could overlook. She was a modest, 
pure, high-minded woman — whom we 
will not call a lady, because of her posi- 
tion in life, and because she darned 
stockings in a kitchen., In all other re- 
spects she deserved the name. 

“ I heard your voice outside with the 


master,” she said, rising from her chair 
to answer the parson’s salutation, and 
putting down her stockings first, and 
then her spectacles upon the book, so 
that the Bible was completely hidden ; 
‘^and I knew you would not go without 
saying a word to the old w^oman.” 

“ I believe I came mostly to see you 
to-day, Mrs. Brattle.” 

“Did you then? It’s kind of you, 
I’m sure, Mr. Fenwick, this hot weather; 
and you with so many folk to mind, too. 
Will you take an apple, Mr. Fenwick? 
I don’t know that we’ve anything else to 
offer, but the quarantines are rare this 
year, they say ; though no doubt you 
have them better at the vicarage ?” 

Fenwick took a large red apple from 
the dresser, and began to munch it, 
declaring that they had none such in 
their orchard. And, then, when the 
apple was finished, he had to begin his 
story. 

“ Mrs. Brattle, I’m sorry that I have 
something to say that I am sure will vex 
you.” 

“Eh, Mr. Fenwick! Bad news? 
’Deed and I think there’s but little good 
news left to us now — little that comes 
from the tongues of men. It’s bad news 
that is always coming here, Mr. Fenwick. 
What is it, sir ?” 

Then he repeated the question he had 
before put to the miller about Sam. 
Where was Sam last night ? She only 
shook her head. Did he sleep at home ? 
She shook her head again. Had he 
breakfasted at home ? 

“’Deed no, sir. I haven’t set eyes 
on him since before yesterday.” 

“ But how does he live ? His father 
does riot give him money, I suppose ?” 

“There’s little enough to give him, 
Mr. Fenwick. When he is at the mih 
his father do pay him a some’at over and 
above his keep. It isn’t much, sir. 
Young men must have a some’at in their 
pocket at times.” 

“ He has too much in his pockets, 1 
fear. I wish he had nothing, so that he 
needs must come home for his meals. 
He works at the mill, doesn’t he ?” 

“ At times, sir ; and there isn’t a lad 
in all Bullnmpton” — for so the name 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON, 


33 


was ordinarily pronounced — « who can 
do a turn of work to beat him.” 

“ Do he and his father agree pretty 
well ?” 

“At times, sir. Times again his 
father don’t say much to him. The 
master ain’t given to much talking in the 
mill, and Sam, when he’s there, works 
with a will. There’s times when his 
father softens down to him, and then, to 
see ’em, you’d think they was all in all 
to each other.. There’s a stroke of the 
master about Sam hisself, at times, Mr. 
Fenwick, and the old man’s eyes gladden 
to see it. There’s none so near his 
heart now as poor Sam.” 

“ If he were as honest a man as his 
father, I could forgive all the rest,” said 
Mr. Fenwick, slowly, meaning to imply 
that he was not there now to complain 
of church observances neglected or of 
small irregularities of life. The pagan- 
ism of the old miller had often been the 
subject of converse between the parson 
and Mrs. Brattle, it being a matter on 
which she had many an unhappy thought. 
He, groping darkly among subjects which 
he hardly dared to touch in her presence, 
lest he should seem to unteach that in 
private which he taught in public, had 
subtlely striven to make her believe that 
though she, through her faith, w'ould be 
saved, he, the husband, might yet escape 
that doom of everlasting fire which to her 
was so stern a reality that she thought 
of its fury with a shudder whenever she 
heard of the world’s wickedness. When 
Parson Fenwick had first made himself 
intimate at the mill, Mrs. Brattle had 
thought that her husband’s habits of life 
would have been to him as wormwood 
and gall — that he would be unable not 
to chide ; and well she knew that her 
husband would bear no chiding. By 
degrees she had come to understand that 
this new parson was one who talked 
more of life with its sorrows and vices, 
and chances of happiness and possibil- 
ities of goodness, than he did of the re- 
quirements of his religion. For herself 
inwardly she had grieved at this, and, 
possibly, also for him ; but doubtless 
there had come to her some comfort, 
which she did not care to analyze, from 
3 


the manner in which “the master,” as 
she called him, pagan as he was, had 
been treated by her clergyman. She 
wondered that it should be so, but yet it 
was a relief to her to know that God’s 
messenger should come home to her, 
and yet say never a word of his message 
to that hard lord, whom she so feared 
and so loved, and who was, as she well 
knew, too stubborn to receive it. And 
Fenwick had spoken — still spoke to her 
— so tenderly of her erring, fallen child, 
never calling her a castaway — talking of 
her as Carry, who might yet be worthy 
of happiness here and of all joy here- 
after — that when she thought of him as 
a minister of God, whose duty it was to 
pronounce God’s tlweats to erring hu- 
man beings, she was almost alarmed. 
She could hardly understand his lenien- 
cy, his abstinence from reproof ; but en- 
tertained a vague, wandering, unformed 
wish that, as he never opened the vials 
of his wrath on them, he would pour it 
'out upon her — on her who would bear it 
for their sake so meekly. If there was 
such a wish it was certainly doomed to 
disappointment. At this moment Fanny 
came in and courtesied as she gave her 
hand to the parson. 

“ Was Sam at home, last night, Fan 
asked the mother, in a sad, low voice., 

“ Yes, mother. He slept in his bed.” 

“You are sure ?” said the parson. 

“ Quite sure. I heard him this morn- 
ing as he went out. It w^as about five. 
He spoke to me and I answered him.” 

“ What did he say ?” 

“ That he must go over to Lavington, 
and wouldn’t be home till nightfall. I 
told him where he would find bread and 
cheese, and he took some.” 

“ But you didn’t see him last night ?” 

“ No, sir. He comes in at all hours, 
when he pleases. He was at din^j^er be- 
fore yesterday, but I haven’t seen him 
since. He didn’t go nigh the mill after 
dinner that day.” 

Then Mr. Fenwick considered how 
much he would tell to the mother and 
sister, and how much he would keep 
back. He did not in his heart believe 
that Sam Brattle had intended to enter 
his house and rob it, but he did believe - 


34 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


t’liat the men with whom Sam was asso- 
ciated were thieves and housebreakers. 
If these men were prowling about Bull- 
hampton, it was certainly his duty to 
have them arrested if possible, and to 
prevent probable depredations, for his 
neighbors’ sake as well as for his own. 
Nor would he be justified in neglecting 
this duty with the object of saving Sam 
Brattle. If only he could entice Sam 
away from them, into his own ''hands, 
under the power of his tongue, there 
might probably be a chance. 

“You think he’ll be home to-night?” 
he asked. 

“He said he would,” replied Fanny, 
who knew that she could not answer for 
her brother’s word. > 

“ If he does, bid him come to me — 
make him come to me ! Tell him that 
I will do him no harm. God knows 
how truly it is rfiy object to do him 
good.” 

“ We are sure of that, sir,” said the 
mother. 

“ He need not be afraid that I will 
preach to him. I will only talk to him, 
as I would to a younger brother.” 

“But what is it that he has done, 
sir ?” 

“ He has done nothing that I know. 
There ! I will tell you the whole. I 
found him prowling about my garden at 
near midnight, yesterday. Had he been 
alone I should have thought nothing of 
it. He thinks he owes me a grudge for 
speaking to his father ; and had I found 
him paying it by filling his pockets with 
the fruit, I should only have told him 
that it would be better that he should 
come and take it in the morning.” 

“ But he wasn’t — stealing ?” asked the 
mother. 

“ He was doing nothing; neither were 
the !^n. But they were blackguards, 
and he was in bad hands. He could not 
have been in worse. I had a tussle with 
one of them, and I am sure the man was 
hurt. That, however, has nothing to do 
with it. What I desire is, to get a hold 
of Sam, so that he may be rescued from 
the hands of such companions. If you 
can make him come to me, do so.” 

Fanny promised, and so did the 


mother ; but the promise was given in 
that tone which seemed to imply that 
nothing should be expected from its 
performance. Sam had long been deaf 
to the voices of the women of his family, 
and when his father’s angel* would be 
hot against him, he would simply go 
and live where and how none of them 
knew. Among such men and women 
as the Brattles, parental authority must 
needs lie much lighter than it does with 
those who are wont to give much and 
to receive much. What obedience does 
the lad owe who at eighteen goes forth 
and earns his own bread ? What is it 
to him that he has not yet reached man’s 
estate ? He has to do a rfian’s work, 
and the price of it is his own, in his 
hands, when he has earned it. There is 
no curse upon the poor heavier than that 
which comes from the early breach of 
all ties of duty between fathers and their 
sons, and mothers and their daughters. 

Mr. Fenwick, as he passed out of the 
miller’s house, saw Jacob Brattle at the 
door of the mill. He was tugging along 
some load, pulling it in at the door, and 
prevailing against the weakness of his 
age by the force of his energy. The 
parson knew that the miller saw him, 
but the miller took no notice — looked 
rather as though he did not wish to be 
observed — and so the parson went on. 
When at home he postponed his account 
of what had taken place till he should be 
alone with his wife, but at night he told 
her the whole story. 

“The long and the short of it is. 
Master Sam will turn to housebreaking, 
if somebody doesn’t get hold of him.” 

“To housebreaking, Frank?” 

“ I believe that he is about it.” 

“And were they going to break in 
here ?” 

“ I don’t think he was. I don’t be- 
lieve he was so minded then. But he 
had shown them the way in, and they 
were looking about on their own scores. 
Don’t you frighten yourself. What 
with the constable and the life-pre- 
server, we’ll be safe. I’ve a big dog 
coming — a second Bone’m. Sam Brat- 
tle is in more danger, I fear, than the 
silver forks.” 


4 '. 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


35 


m 

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE LAST DAY. 

The parson’s visit to the mill was on 
a Saturday. The next Sunday passed 
by very quietly, and nothing was seen of 
Mr. Gilmore at the vicarage. He was 
at church, and walked with the two ladies 
from the porch to their garden gate, but 
he declined Mrs. Fenwick’s invitation to 
lunch, and was not seen again on that 
day. The parson had sent word to 
Fanny Brattle during the service to stop 
a few minutes for him, and had learned 
from her that Sam had not been at home 
last night. He had also learned, before 
the service that morning, that very early 
on the Saturday, probably about four 
o’clock, two men had passed through 
Paul’s Hinton with a huckster’s cart and 
a pony. Now Paul’s Hinton — or Hin- 
ton Saint Paul’s, as it should be properly 
called — was a long, straggling village six 
miles from Bullhampton, and half way on 
the road to Market Lavington, to which 
latter place Sam had told his sister that 
he was going. Putting these things to- 
gether, Mr. Fenwick did not in the least 
doubt but the two men in the cart were 
they who had been introduced to his 
garden by young Brattle. 

“ I only hope,” said the parson, « that 
there’s a gopd surgeon at Market- Lav- 
ington. One of the gentlemen in that 
cart must have wanted him, I take it.” 
Then he thought that it might, perhaps, 
be worth his while to trot over to Lav- 
ington in the course of the week and 
make inquiries. 

On the Wednesday, Mary Lowther 
was to go back to Loring. This seemed 
like a partial break-up of their establish- 
ment, both to the parson and his wife. 
Fenwick had made up his mind that 
Mary was to be his nearest neighbor for 
life, and had fallen into the way of treat- 
ing her accordingly, telling her of things 
in the parish as he might have done to 
the squire’s wife, presuming the squire’s 
wife to have been on the best possible 
terms with him. He now regarded Mary 
as being Almost an impostor. She had 
taken him in and obtained his confidence 
under false pretences. It was true that 


she might still come and fill the place 
that he had appointed for her. He 
rather thought that at last she would do 
so. But he was angry with her because 
she hesitated. She was creating an un- 
necessary disturbance among them. She 
had, he thought, been now wooed long 
enough, and, as he told his wife more 
than once, was making an ass of herself. 
Mrs. Fenwick was not quite so hard in 
her judgment, but she also was tempted 
to be a little angry. She loved her 
friend Mary a great deal better than she 
loved Mr. Gilmore, but she was thor- 
oughly convinced that Mary could not 
do better than accept a man whom she 
owned that she liked — whom she, at any 
rate, liked so well that she had not as 
yet rejected him. Therefore, although 
Mary was going, they were, both of them, 
rather savage with her. 

The Monday passed by, also very 
quietly, and Mr. Gilmore did not come 
to them, but he had sent a note to tell 
them that he would walk down on the 
Tuesday evening to say good-bye to Miss 
Lowther. Early on the Wednesday, Mr. 
Fenwick was to drive her to Westbury, 
whence the railway would take her round 
by Chippenham and Swindon to Loring. 
On the Tuesday morning she was very 
melancholy. Though she knew that it 
was right to go away, she greatly re- 
gretted that it was necessary. She was 
angry with herself for not having better 
known her own mind ; and though she 
was quite sure that were Mr. Gilmore to 
repeat his offer to her that moment she 
would not accept it, nevertheless she 
thought ill of herself because she would 
not do so. “ I do believe,” she said to 
herself, ‘‘ that I shall never like any man 
better.” She knew well enough that if 
she was never brought to love any man, 
she never ought to marry any man ; but 
she was not quite sure whether Janet 
was not right in telling her that she had 
formed erroneous notions of the sort of 
love she ought to feel for the man whom 
she should resolve to accept. Perhaps 
it was true that that kind of adoration 
which Janet entertained for her husband 
was a feeling which came after marriage 
—a feeling which would spring up in her 


3 ^ 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. ‘ • 


own heart as soon as she was the man’s 
own wife, the mistress of his house, the 
mother of his children, the one human 
being for whose welfare he was solicitous 
beyond that of all others. And this man 
did love her. She had no doubt about 
that. And she was unhappy, too, be- 
cause she felt that she had offended his 
friends, and that they thought that she 
was not treating their friend well. 

“ Janet,” she said, as they were again 
sitting out on the lawn, on that Tuesday 
afternoon, “ I am almost sorry that I 
came here at all.” 

“ Don’t say that, dear.” 

“ I have spent some of the happiest 
days of my life here, but the visit,, on 
the whole, has been unfortunate. I am 
going away in disgrace. I feel that so 
acutely.” 

“ What nonsense ! How are you in 
disgrace ?” 

“Mr. Fenwick and you think that I 
have behaved badly. I know you do, 
and I feel it so strongly ! I think so 
much of him, and believe him to be so 
good, and so wise, and so understand- 
ing — he knows what people should do, 
and should be, so well — that I cannot 
doubt that I have been wrong if he 
thinks so.” 

“He only wishes that you could have 
made up your mind to marry a most 
worthy man, who is his friend, and who, 
by matrying you, would have fixed you 
close to us. He wishes it still, and so 
do I.” 

“But he thinks that I have been — 
have been mopish and lackadaisical 
and — and — almost untrue. I can hear 
it in the tone of his voice, and see it in 
his eye. I can tell it from the way he 
shakes hands with me in the morning. 
He is such a true man that I know in a 
moment what he means at all times. I 
am going away under his displeasure, 
and I wish I had never come.” 

“ Return as Mrs. Gilmore, and all his 
displeasure will disappear.” 

“Yes, because he would forgive me. 
He would say to himself that as I had 
repented I might be taken back to his 
grace ; but as things are at present he 
condemns me. And so do you.” 


“ If you ask me, Mary, I must tdl 
the truth. I don’t think you know your 
own mind.” 

“ Suppose I don’t, is that disgraceful ?” 

“ But there comes a time' w'hen a gir/ 
should know her own mind. You are 
giving this poor fellow an enormous deal 
of unnecessary trouble.” 

“ I have known my own mind so fai 
as to tell him that I could not marry 
him.” 

“As far as I understand, Mary, you 
have always told him to wait a little 
longer.” 

“ I have never asked him to wait, 
Janet — never. It is he who says that 
he will wait ; and what can I answer 
when he says so? All the same I don’t 
mean to defend myself. I do believe 
that I have been wrong, and I wish 
that I had never come here. It sounds 
ungrateful, but I do. It is so dreadful 
to feel that I have incurred the displeas- 
ure of people that I love so dearly !” 

“ There is no displeasure, Mary : the 
word is a good deal too strong. I won- 
der what you’ll think of all this when the 
parson and his wife come up on future 
Sundays to dine with the squire and his 
lady. I have long since made up my 
mind that when afternoon service is 
over w'e ought to go up and be made 
much of at the Privets and you’re 
putting all this off till I’m an old wo- 
man — for a chimera. It’s about our 
Sunday dinners that I’m angry. Flo, 
my darling, what a face you have got ! 
Do come and sit still for a few minutes, 
or you’ll be in a fever.” While Mrs. 
Fenwick was wiping her girl’s brow and 
smoothing her ringlets, Mary walked off 
to the orchard by herself. There was. a 
broad green path 'W'hich made the circuit 
of it, and she took the round twice, 
pausing at the bottom to look at the 
spot from which she had tumbled into 
the river. What a trouble she had been 
to them all ! She was thoroughly dis- 
satisfied with herself ; especially so be- 
cause she had fallen into those very 
difficulties which from early years she 
had resolved that she would av^id. She 
had made up her mind that she would 
not flirt ; that she would never give a 








THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


37 


right to any man — or to any woman — to 
call her a coquette ; that if love and a 
husband came in her way she would 
take them thankfully ; and that if they 
did not, she would go on her path 
quietly, if possible, feeling no uneasi- 
ness, and certainly showing none, be- 
cause the joys of a married life did not 
belong to her. But now she had gotten 
herself into a mess, and she could not 
tell herself that it was not her own fault. 
Then she resolved again that in future 
she would go right. It could not but 
be that a woman could keep herself 
from floundering in these messes of 
half-courtship — of courtship on one side 
and doubt on the other — if she would 
persistently adhere to some safe rule. 
Her rejection of Mr. Gilmore ought to 
have been unhesitating and certain from 
the first. She was sure of that now. 
She had been guilty of an absurdity in 
supposing that because the man had 
been in earnest, therefore she had been 
justified in keeping him in suspense for 
his own sake. She had been guilty of 
an absurdity and also of great self-con- 
ceit. She could do nothing now but 
wait till she should hear from him, and 
then answer him steadily. After what 
had passed she could not go to him and 
declare that it was all over. He was 
coming to-night, and she was nearly 
sure that he would not say a word to 
her on the subject. If he did, if he re- 
newed his offer, then she would speak 
out. It was hardly possible that he 
should do so, and therefore the trouble 
which she had created must remain. 

As she thus resolved, she was lean- 
ing over the gate looking into the 
churchyard, not much observing the 
graves or the monuments or the beau- 
tiful old ivy-covered tower, or thinking 
of the dead that were lying there or of 
the living who prayed there ; but swear- 
ing to herself that for the rest of her life 
she would keep clear of, what she called, 
girlish messes. Like other young ladies, 
she had read much poetry and many 
novels, but her sympathies had never 
been with young ladies who could not 
go straight through with their love 
affairs, from the beginning to the end, I 


without flirtation of either an inward or 
an outward nature. Of all her heroines, 
Rosalind was the one she liked the 
best, because from the first moment of 
her passion she knew herself and what 
she was about, and loved her lover right 
heartily. Of all girls in prose or poetry 
she declared that Rosalind was the least 
of a flirt. She meant to have the man, 
and never had a doubt about it. But 
with such a one as Flora Macivor she 
had no patience — a girl who did and who 
didn’t, who w’ould and who wouldn’t, who 
could and who couldn’t, and who of all 
flirts was to her the most nauseous ! As 
she was taking herself to task, accusing 
herself of being a Flora without the 
poetry and romance to excuse her, Mr. 
Fenwick came round from Farmer 
Trumbull’s side of the church, and got 
over the stile into the churchyard. 

“What, Mary, is that you, gazing in so 
intently among your brethren that were V 

“ I was not thinking of them,” she 
said, with a smile. “ My mind was in- 
tent on some of my brethren that are.” 
Then there came a thought across her, 
and she made a sudden decision. “ Mr. 
Fenwick,” she said, “would you mind 
walking up and down the churchyard 
with me once or twice ? I have some- 
thing to say to you, and I can say it 
now so w'ell.” He opened the gate for 
her and she joined him. “ I want to 
beg your pardon, and to get you to for- 
give me. I know you have been angry 
with me.” 

“ Hardly angry, but vexed. As you 
ask me so frankly and prettily, I will 
forgive you. There is my hand upon it. 
All evil thoughts against you shall go 
out of my head. I shall still have my 
wishes, but I will not be cross with 
you.” 

“You are so good and so clearly hon- 
est ! I declare I think Janet the hap- 
piest woman that I ever heard of.” 

“ Come, come ! I didn’t bargain for 
this kind of thing when I allowed my- 
self to be brought in here.” 

“ But it is so. I did not stop you for 
that, however, but to acknowledge that 
I have been wrong, and to ask you tc 
pardon me.” 


38 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


“ I will — I do. If there has been 
anything amis?, it shall not be looked 
on again as amiss. But there has been 
only one thing amiss.” 

“And, Mr. Fenwick, will you do this 
for me 1 Will you tell him that I was 
foolish to say that he might wait ? Why 
should he wait ? Of course he should 
not wait. When I am gone, tell him so, 
and beg him to make an end of it. I 
had not thought of it properly, or I would 
not have allow'ed him to be tormented.” 

There was a pause after this, during 
which they walked half the length of the 
path in silence. 

“No, Mary,” he said, after awhile, 
“ I will not tell him that.” 

“Why not, Mr. Fenwick?” 

“ Because it will not be for his good, 
or for mine, or for Janet’s, or, as I be- 
lieve, for yours.” 

“Indeed, it will — for the good of us 
all.” 

“ I think, Mary, you do not quite un- 
derstand. There is not one among us 
who does not wish that you should come 
here and be one of us — a real, right- 
down Bullumpton ’ooman, as they say 
in the village. I want you to be my 
wife’s dearest friend and my own nearest 
neighbor. There is no man in the world 
w'hom I love as I do Harry Gilmore, and 
I want you to be his wife. I have said 
to myself and to Janet a score of times 
that you certainly would be so, sooner or 
later. My wrath has not come from 
your bidding him to wait, but from your 
coldness in not taking him without wait- 
ing. You should remember that we grow 
gray very quickly, Mary.” , 

Here was the old story again — the old 
story as she had heard it from Harry 
Gilmore — but told as she had never ex- 
pected to hear it from the lips of Frank 
Fenwick. It amounted to this — that 
even he, Frank Fenwick, bade Ijer wait 
and try. But she had formed her reso- 
lution, and she was not going to be 
turned aside, even by Frank Fenwick. 
“ I had thought that you would help me,” 
she said, very slowly. 

“ So I will, with all my heart, toward 
the keys of the store closets of the Priv- 
ets, but not a step the other way. It 


has to be, Mary. He is too much in 
earnest, and too good, and too fit for the 
place to which he aspires, to miss his 
object. Come, we’ll go in. Mind, you 
and I are one again, let it go how it 
may. I will own that I have been vexed 
for the last two days — have been in a 
humor unbecoming your departure to- 
morrow. I throw all that behind me. 
You and I are dear friends, are we 
not ?” 

“I do hope so, Mr. Fenwick.” 

“ There shall be no feather moulted 
between us. But as to operating be- 
tween you and Harry with the view of 
keeping you apart, I decline the com- 
mission. It is my assured belief that 
sooner or later he will be your husband. 
Now we will go up to Janet, who will 
begin to think herself a Penelope, if we 
desert her much longer.” 

Immediately after this Mary went 
up to dress for dinner. Should she 
make up her mind to give way and put 
on the blue ribbons which he loved so 
well ? She thought that she could tell 
him at once if she made up her mind in 
that direction. It would not, perhaps, 
be very maidenly, but anything would be 
better than suspense, than torment to him. 
Then she took out her blue ribbons, aqd 
tried to go through that ceremony of 
telling him. It was quite impossible. 
Were she to do so, she would know no 
happiness again in this world, or prob- 
ably in the other. To do the thing it 
would be necessary that she should lie 
to him. 

She came down in a simple white 
dress, without any ribbons — in just the 
dress which she would have worn had 
Mr. Gilmore not been coming. At din- 
ner they w'ere very merry. The word 
of command li^d gone forth from Frank 
that Mary was to be forgiven, and Janet 
of course obeyed. The usual courtesies 
of society demand that there shall be 
civility, almost flattering civility, from 
host to guest, and from guest to host ; 
and yet how often does it occur that in 
the midst of these courtesies there is 
something that tells of hatred, of ridicule 
or of scorn ! How often does it happen 
that the guest knows that he is disliked, 


/ 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


or the host knows that he is a bore ! I 
In the last two days, Mary had felt that 
she was not cordially a welcome guest. 
She had felt also that the reason was 
one against which she could not contend. 
Now all that, at least, was over. Frank 
Fenwick’s manner had never been pleas- 
anter to her than it was on this occasion, 
and Janet followed the suit which her 
lord led. 

They were again on the lawn between 
eight and nine o’clock when Harry Gil- 
more came up to them. He was gra- 
cious enough in his salutation to Mary 
Lowther, but no indifferent person would 
have thought that he was her lover. 
He talked chiefly to Fenwick, and when 
they went in to tea did not take a place 
on the sofa beside Mary. But after a 
while he said something which told them 
all of his love. 

“What do you think I’ve been doing 
to-day, Frank.?” 

“ Getting your wheat down, I should 
hope.” 

“We begin that to-morrow. I never 
like to be quite the earliest at that work, 
or yet the latest.” 

“ Better be a day too early than a day 
too late, Harry.” 

“Never mind about that. I’ve been 
down with old Brattle.” 

“ And what have you been doing with 
him !” 

“ I’m half ashamed, and yet I fancy 
I’m right.” 

As he said this he looked across to 
Mary Lowther, who no doubt was watch- 
ing every turn of his face from the corner 
of her eye. “ I’ve just been and knocked 
under, and told him that the old place 
shall be put to rights.” 

“ That’s your doing, Mary,” said Mrs. 
Fenwick, injudiciously. 

“ Oh no ; I’m sure it is not. Mr. 
Gilmore would only do such a thing as 
that because it is proper.” 

“ I don’t know about it’s being proper,” 
said he. “ I’m not quite sure whether 
it is or not. I shall never get any in- 
terest for my money.” 

“ Interest for one’s money is not 
everything,” said Mrs. Fenwick. 

“Nevertheless, when one builds houses 1 


for other people to live in, one hi 
look to it,” said the parson. 

“ People say it’s the prettiest spot in 
the parish,” continued Mr. Gilmore, 
“and as such it shouldn’t be let to go to 
ruin.” Janet remarked afterward to her 
husband that Mary Lowther had cer- 
tainly declared that it was the prettiest 
spot in the parish, but that, as far as 
her knowledge went, nobody else had 
ever said so. “ And then, you see, 
when I refused to spend money upon it, 
old Brattle had money of his own, and 
it was his business to do it.” 

“ He hasn’t much now, I fear,” said 
Mr. Fenwick. 

“ I fear not. His family has been 
very heavy on him. He paid money to 
put two of his boys into trade who died 
afterward, and then for years he had 
either doctors or undertakers about the 
place. So I just went down to him and 
told him I would do it.” 

“ And how did he take it ?” 

“ Like a bear as he is. He would 
hardly speak to me, but went away into 
the mill, telling me that I might settle it 
all with his wife. It’s going to be done, 
however. I shall have the estimate next 
week, and I suppose it will cost me two 
or three hundred pounds. The mill is 
worse than the house, I take it.” 

“ I am so glad it is to be done !” said 
Mary. After that Mr. Gilmore did not 
in the least begrudge his two or three 
hundred pounds. But he said not a 
word to Mary, just pressed her hand at 
parting, and lefV her subject to a possi- 
bility of a reversal of her sentence at the 
end of the stated period. 

On the next morning Mr. Fenwick 
drove her in his little open phaeton to 
the station at Westbury. “ You are to 
come back to us, you know,” said Mrs. 
Fenwick; “and remember how anx- 
iously I am waiting for my Sunday din- 
ners.” Mary said not a word, but as 
she was driven round in front of the 
church she looked up at the dear old 
tower, telling herself that, in all proba- 
bility, she would never see it again. 

“ I have just one thing to say, Mary,” 
said the parson, as he walked up and 
down the platform with her at West- 


40 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


bury: “you are to remember that, what- 
ever happens, there is always a home for 
you at Bullhampton when you choose to 
come to it. I am not speaking of the 
Privets now, but of the vicarage.” 

“ How very good you are to me !” 

“ And so are you to us. Dear friends 
should be good to each other. God bless 
you, dear !” From thence she made her 
way home to Loring by herself. 


CHAPTER IX. 

MISS MARRABLE. 

Whatever may be the fact as to the 
rank and proper calling of Bullhampton, 
there can be no doubt that Loring is a 
town. There is a market-place, and a 
High street, and a Board of Health, and 
a Paragon Crescent, and a town hall, 
and two different parish churches — one 
called St. Peter Lowtown, and the other 
St. Botolph’s Uphill — and there are 
Uphill street, and Lowtown street, and 
various other streets. I never heard of 
a mayor of Loring, but, nevertheless, 
there is no doubt as to its being a town. 
Nor did it ever return members to Par- 
liament ; but there was once, in one of 
the numerous bills that have been pro- 
posed, an idea of grouping it with Ciren- 
cester and Lechlade. All the world of 
course knows that this was never done ; 
but the transient rumor of it gave the 
Loringites an improved position, and 
justified that little joke about a live dog 
being better than a dead lion, with which 
the parson at Bullhampton regaled Miss 
Lowther at the time. 

All the fashion of Loring dwelt as a 
matter of course at Uphill. Lowtown 
was vulgar, dirty, devoted to commer- 
cial and manufacturing purposes, and 
hardly owned a single genteel private 
house. There was the parsonage, in- 
deed, which stood apart fVom its neigh- 
bors, inside great, tall slate-colored 
gates, and which had a garden of its 
own. But except the clergyman, who 
had no choice in the matter, nobody, 
who was anybody, lived at Lowtown. 
There were three or four factories there, 
in and out of which troops of girls would 


be seen passing twice a day, in their 
ragged, soiled, dirty mill dresses, all of 
whom would come out on Sunday 
dressed with a magnificence that would 
lead one to suppose that trade at Loring 
was doing very well. Whether trade 
did well or ill, whether wages were high 
or low, whether provisions were cheap 
in price, whether there was peace or 
war between capital and labor, still there 
was the Sunday magnificence. What a 
blessed thing it is for women^and for 
men too, certainly — that there should be 
a positive happiness to the female sex 
in the possession, and in exhibiting the 
possession, of bright clothing ! It is 
almost as good for the softening of man- 
ners, and the not permitting of them to 
be ferocious, as is the faithful study of 
the polite arts. At Loring the manners 
of the mill hands, as they were called, 
were upon the whole good ; which I 
believe was in a great degree to be 
attributed to their Sunday magnificence. 

The real West End of Loring was 
understood by all men to lie in Paragon 
Crescent, at the back of St. Botolph’s 
Church. The whole of this crescent 
was built, now some twenty years ago, 
by Mrs. Fenwick’s father, who had been 
clever enough to see that as rnills were 
made to grow in the low town, houses, 
for wealthy people to live in ought to be 
made to grow in the high town. He 
therefore built the Paragon, and a cer- 
tain small row of very pretty houses 
near the end of the Paragon, called 
Balfour Place *, and had done very well, 
and had made money; and now lay 
asleep in the vaults below St. Botolph’s 
Church. No inconsiderable proportion 
of the comfort of Bullhampton parson- 
age is due to Mr. Balfour’s success in 
that achievement of Paragon Crescent. 
There were none of the family left at 
Loring. The widow had gone away to 
live at Torquay with a sister, and the 
only other child, another daughter, was 
married to that distinguished barrister 
on the Oxford circuit, Mr. Quickenham. 
Mr. Quickenham and our friend the par- 
son were very good friends, but they did 
not see a great deal of each other ; Mr. 
Fenwick not going up very often to 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON, 


41 


London, and Mr. Quickenham being un- 
able to use the vicarage of Bullhampton 
when on his own circuit. As for the 
two sisters, they had very strong ideas 
about their husbands’ professions — 
Sophia Quickenham never hesitating to 
declare that one was life, and the other 
stagnation ; and Janet Fenwick protest- 
ing that the difference to her seemed to 
be almost that between good and evil. 
They wrote to each other perhaps once 
a quarter. But the Balfour family was 
in truth broken up. 

Miss Marrable, Mary Lowther’s aunt, 
lived, of course, at Uphill, but not in the 
Crescent, nor yet in Balfour Place. She 
was an old lady with very modest means, 
whose brother had been rector down at 
St. Peter’s, and she had passed the 
greater part of her life within those slate- 
colored gates. When he died, and when 
she, almost exactly at the same time, 
found that it would be expedient that 
she should take charge of her niece 
Mary, she removed herself up to a small 
house in Botolph lane, in which she 
could live decently on her three hundred 
pounds a year. It must not be sur- 
mised that, Botolph lane was a squalid 
place, vile, or dirty, or even unfashion- 
able. It was narrow and old, having 
been inhabited by decent people long be- 
fore the Crescent, or even Mr. Balfour 
himself, had been in existence ; but it 
was narrow and old, and the rents were 
cheap, and here Miss Marrable was able 
to live, and occasionally to give tea- 
parties, and to provide a comfortable 
home for her niece within the limits of 
her income. Miss Marrable was her- 
self a lady of very good family, the late 
Sir Gregory Marrable having been her 
uncle ; but her only sister had married a 
Captain Lowther, whose mother had 
been first cousin to the Earl of Peri- 
winkle ; and therefore on her own ac- 
count, as well as on that of her niece. 
Miss Marrable thought a good deal about 
blood. She was one of those ladies — 
now few in number — who within their 
heart of hearts conceive that money 
gives no title to social distinction, let the 
amount of money be ever so great and 
its source ever so stainless. Rank to 1 


her was a thing quite assured and ascer- 
tained, and she had no more doubt as to 
her own right to pass out of a room be- 
fore the wife of a millionaire than she 
had of the right of a millionaire to spend 
his own guineas. She always addressed 
an attorney by letter as Mister, raising 
up her eyebrows when appealed to on 
thesnatter, and explaining that an attor- 
ney is not an esquire. She had an idea 
that the son of a gentleman, if he in- 
tended to maintain his rank as a gentle- 
man, should earn his income as a clergy- 
man, or as a barrister, or as a soldier, or 
as a sailor. Those were the professions 
intended for gentlemen. She would not 
absolutely say that a physician was not 
a gentleman, or even a surgeon ; but she 
would never allow to Physic the same 
absolute privileges which, in her eyes, 
belonged to the Law and the Church, 
There might also possibly be a doubt 
about the Civil Service and Civil En- 
gineering ; but she had no doubt what- 
ever that when a man touched Trade or 
Commerce in any way he was doing that 
which wa 3 not the work of a gentle- 
man. He' might be very respectable, 
and it might be very necessary that he 
should do it ; but brewers, bankers and 
merchants were not gentlemen, and the 
world, according to Miss Marrable’s 
theory, was going astray because people 
were forgetting their landmarks. 

As to Miss Marrable herself, nobody 
could doubt that she was a lady : she 
looked it in every inch. There were 
not, indeed, many inches of her, for she 
was one of the smallest, daintiest little 
old women that ever were seen. But now, 
at seventy, she was very pretty — quite a 
woman to look at with pleasure. Her 
feet and hands were exquisitely made, 
and she was very proud of them. She 
wore her own gray hair, of which she 
showed very little, but that little was al- 
ways exquisitely nice. Her caps weie 
the perfection of caps. Her green eyes 
were bright and sharp, and seemed to 
say that she knew very well how to take 
care of herself. Her mouth and nose 
and chin were all well formed, small, 
shapely and concise — not straggling 
about her face as do the mouths, noses 


42 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON, 


and Chino of some old ladies ; ay, and 
of some young ladies also. Had it not 
been that she had lost her teeth, she 
would hardly have looked to be an old 
woman. Her health was perfect. She 
herself would say that she had never yet 
known a day’s illness. She dressed with 
the greatest care, always wearing ‘silk at 
and after luncheon. She dressed three 
times a day, and in the morning would 
come down in what she called a merino 
gown. But then, with her, clothes never 
seemed to wear out. Her motions were 
so slight and delicate that the gloss of 
her dresses would remain on them when 
the gowns of other women would almost 
have been worn to rags. She was never 
seen of an afternoon or evening without 
gloves, and her gloves were always clean 
and apparently new. She went to church 
once on Sundays in winter, and twice in 
summer, and she had a certain very 
short period of each day devoted to 
Bible reading ; but at Boring she was 
not reckoned to be among the religious 
people. Indeed, there were those who 
said that she was very worldly-minded, 
and that at her time of life she ought to 
devote herself to other books than those 
which were daily in her hands. Pope, 
Dryden, Swift, Cowley, Fielding, Rich- 
ardson and Goldsmith were her authors. 
She read the new novels as they came 
out, but always with critical comparisons 
that were hostile to them. Fielding, she 
said, described life as it was, whereas 
Dickens had manufactured a kind of life 
that never had existed, and never could 
exist. The pathos of Esmond waS ver}-- 
well, but Lady Castlemaine was nothing 
to Clarissa Harlowe. As for poetry, 
Tennyson, she said, was all sugar candy: 
he had neither the common sense, nor 
the wit, nor, as she declared, to her ear, 
the melody of Pope. All the poets of 
the present century, she declared, if 
put together, could not have written the 
Rape of the Lock. Pretty as she was, 
and small and nice and lady-like, I think 
she liked her literature rather strong. 
It is certain that she had Smollett’s 
novels in a cupboard up stairs, and it 
was said that she had been found read- 
ing one of Wycherley’s plays. 


The strongest point in her character 
was her contempt of' money. Not that 
she had any objection to it, or would at 
all have turned up her nose at another 
hundred a year had anybody left to her 
such an accession of income, but that 
in real truth she never measured herself 
by what she possessed, or others by 
what they possessed. She was as grand 
a lady to herself, eating her little bit of 
cold mutton or dining off a tiny sole, as 
though she sat at the finest banquet 
that could be spread. She had no fear 
of economies, either before her two 
handmaids or anybody else in the world. 
She was fond of her tea, and in summer 
could have cream for twopence ; but 
when cream became dear, she saved 
money and had a penn’orth of milk. 
She drank two glasses of Marsala every- 
day, and let it be clearly understood that 
she couldn’t afford sherry. But when she 
gave a tea-party, as she did perhaps six 
or seven times a year, sherry w-as always 
handed round with cake before the peo- 
ple went away. There were matters in 
which she was extravagant. When she 
went out herself she never took one 
of the common street flies, but paid 
eighteenpence extra to get a brougham 
from the Dragon. And when Mary 
Lowther — who had only fifty pounds a 
year of her own, with which she clothed 
herself and provided herself with pocket- 
money — was going to Bullhampton, Miss 
Marrable actually proposed to her to 
take one of the maids with her. Mary 
of course would not hear of it — said that 
she should just as soon think of taking 
the house ; but Miss Marrable had 
thought that it would perhaps not be 
well for a girl so well born as Miss 
Lowther to go out visiting without a 
maid. She herself very rarely left 
Boring, because she could not afford it ; 
but when, two summers back, she did 
go to Weston-super-Mare for a fort- 
night, she took one of the girls with her. 

Miss Marrable had heard a great deal 
about Mr. Gilmore. Mary, indeed, was 
not inclined to keep secrets from her 
aunt, and her very long absence — so 
much longer than had at first been in- 
tended — could hardly have been sane- 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON, 


tioned unless some reason had been 
given. There had been many letters on 
the subject, not only between Mary and 
her aunt, but between Mrs. Fenwick 
and her very old friend Miss Marrable. 
Of course these latter letters had spoken 
• loudly the praises of Mr. Gilmore, and 
Miss Marrable had become quite one 
of the Gilmore faction. She desired 
that her niece should marry, but that 
she should marry a gentleman. She 
would infinitel}' have preferred to see 
Mary an old maid than to hear that 
she was going to give herself to any 
suitor contaminated by trade. Now 
Mr. Gilmore’s position was exactly that 
which Miss Marrable regarded as being 
the best in England. He was a country 
gentleman, living on his own acres, a 
justice of the peace, whose father and 
grandfather and great-grandfather had 
occupied exactly the same position. 
Such a marriage for Mary would be 
quite safe ; and in these days one did 
hear so often of girls making, she would 
not say improper marriages, but mar- 
riages wdiich in her eyes were not 
fitting ! Mr. Gilmore, she thought, ex- 
actly filled that position which entitled a 
gentleman to propose marriage to such 
a lady as Mary Lowther. 

“Yes, my dear, I am glad to have you 
back again. Of course I have been a 
little lonely, but I bear that kind of thing 
better than most people. Thank God, 
my eyes are good !” 


43 

“You are looking so well, Aunt 
Sarah !” 

“ I am well. I don’t know how other 
women get so much amiss, but God has 
been very good to me.” 

“ And so pretty !” said Mary, kissing 
her. 

“ My dear, it’s a pity you’re not a 
young gentleman.” 

“You are so fresh and nice, aunt. I 
w’ish I could always look as you do.” 

“ What would Mr. Gilmore say ?” 

“Oh! — Mr. Gilmore, Mr. Gilmore, 
Mr. Gilmore ! I am so weary of Mr. 
Gilmore !” 

“ Weary of him, Mary ?” 

“ Weary of myself because of him : 
that is what I mean. He has behaved 
always well, and I am not at all sure 
that I have. And he is a perfect gen- 
tleman. But I shall never be Mrs. Gil- 
more, Aunt Sarah.” 

“Janet says that she thinks you will.” 

“Janet is mistaken. But, dear aunt, 
don’t let us talk about it at once. Of 
course you shalKliear everything in time, 
but I have had so much of it. Let us 
see what new books there are. Cast 
Iron / You don’t mean to say you 
have come to that V 

“ I sha’n’t read it.” 

“ But I w’ill, aunt. So it must not go 
back for a day or two. I do love the 
Fenwicks, dearly, dearly — both of them. 
They are almost, if not quite, perfect 
And yet I am glad to be at home.” 





«• 


PART II. 


CHAPTER X. 

crunch’em can’t be had. 

R. FENWICK had intended to 
have come home round by Mar- 
ket Lavington, after having deposited 
Miss Lowther at the Westbury station, 
with the view of making some inquiry 
respecting the gentleman, with the hurt 
shoulder, but he had found the distance 
to be too great and had abandoned the 
idea. After that there was not a day to 
spare till the middle of the next week ; 
so that it was nearly a fortnight after the 
little scene at the corner of the vicarage 
garden wall before he called upon the 
Lavington constable and the Lavington 
doctor. From the latter he could learn 
nothing. No such patient had been to 
him. But the constable, though he had 
not seen the two men, had heard of 
them. One was a man who in former 
days had frequented Lavington — Bur- 
rows by name, generally known as Jack 
the Grinder, who had been in every 
prison in Wiltshire and Somersetshire, 
but who had not (so said the constable) 
honored Lavington for the last two years 
till this his last appearance. He had, 
however, been seen there in company 
with another man, and had evidently 


been in a condition very unfit for work. 
He had slept one night at a low public 
house, and had then moved on. The 
man had complained of a fall from the 
cart, and had declared that he was black 
and blue all over ; but it seemed to be 
clear that he had no broken bones. Mr. 
Fenwick, therefore, was all but con- 
vinced that Jack the Grinder was the 
gentleman with whom he had had the en- 
counter, and that the Grinder’s back had 
withstood the swinging blow from the 
life-preserver. Of the Grinder’s com- 
panions nothing could be learned. The 
two men had taken the Devizes road out 
of Lavingtop, and beyond that nothing 
was known of them. When the parson 
mentioned Sam Brattle’s name in a 
whisper, the Lavington constable shook 
his head. He knew all about old Jacob 
Brattle. A very respectable party was 
old Mr. Brattle in the constable’s opinion. 
Nevertheless the constable shook his 
head when Sam Brattle’s name was men- 
tioned. Having learned so -much, the 
parson rode home. 

Two days after this, on a Friday, 
Fenwick was sitting after breakfast in 
his study, at work on his sermon for 
next Sunday, when he was told that old 
Mrs. Brattle was waiting to see him. 



THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


He immediately got up and found his 
own wife and the miller’s seated in the 
hall. It was not often that Mrs. Brattle 
made her way to the vicarage, but when 
she did so she was treated with great 
consideration. It was still August, and 
the weather was very hot, and she had 
walked up across the water mead, and 
was tired. A glass of wine and a bis- 
cuit were pressed upon her, and she was 
encouraged to sit and say a few indiffer- 
ent words, before she was taken into the 
study and told to commence the story 
which had brought her so far. And 
there was a most inviting topic of con- 
versation. The mill and the mill prem- 
ises were to be put in order by the land- 
lord. Mrs. Brattle affected to be rather 
dismayed than otherwise by the coming 
operations. The mill would have lasted 
their time, she thought, “ and as for them 
as were to come after them — well ! she 
didn’t know. As tilings was now, per- 
haps it might be that after all Sam would 
have the mill.” But the trouble occa- 
sioned by the workmen would be infinite. 
How were they to live in the mean time, 
and where were they to go ? It soon 
appeared, however, that all this had been 
already arranged. Milling must of course 
be stopped for a month or six weeks. 
“ Indeed, sir, feyther says that there 
won’t be no more grinding much before 
winter.” But the mill was to be re- 
paired first, and then, when it became 
absolutely necessary to dismantle the 
house, they were to endeavor to make 
shift, and live in the big room of the mill 
itself, till their furniture should be put 
back again. Mrs. Fenwick, with ready 
good nature, offered to accommodate 
Mrs. Brattle and Fanny at the vicarage, 
but the old woman declined with many 
protestations of gratitude. She had never 
left her old man yet, and would not dO 
so now. The weather would be mild 
for a while, and she thought that they 
could get through. 

By this time the glass of wine had 
been supped to the bottom, and the 
parson, mindful of his sermon, had led 
the visitor into his study. She had 
come to tell that Sam at last had re- 
turned home. 


45 

« Why didn’t you bring him up with 
you, Mrs. Brattle ?” 

Here was a question to ask of an old 
lady whose dominion over her son was 
absolutely none ! Sam had become so 
frightfully independent that he hardly re- 
garded the word of his father, who was 
a man pre-eminently capable of main- 
taining authority, and would no more do 
a thing because his mother told him 
than because the wind whistled. “ I 
axed him to come up — not just with me, 
but of hisself, Mr. Fenwick — but he said 
as how you would know where to find 
him if you wanted him.” 

« That’s just what I don’t know. How- 
ever, if he’s there now. I’ll go to him. 
It would have been better far that he 
should have come to me.” 

“I told ’un so, Mr. Fenwick — I did, 
indeed.” 

« It does not signify. I will go to 
him. Only it cannot be to-day, as I 
have promised to take my wife over 
to Charlicoats. But I’ll come down 
immediately after breakfast to-morrow. 
You think he’ll still be there ?” 

“I be sure he will, Mr. Fenwick. He 
and feyther have taken on again, till it’s 
beautiful to see. There was none of 
’em feyther ever loved liked he — only 
one.” Thereupon the poor woman burst 
out into tears and covered her face with 
her handkerchief. “He never makes 
half so much account of my Fan, that 
never had a fault belonging to her.” 

“ If Sam will stick to that, it will be 
well for him.” 

• “He’s taken up extr’ordinary with 
the repairs, Mr. Fenwick. He’s in and 
about and over the place, looking to 
everything ; and feyther says he knows 
so much about it he b’lieves the boy 
could do it all out of his own head. 
There’s nothing feyther ever liked so 
much as folks to be strong and clever.” 

“Perhaps the squire’s tradesmen' won’t 
like all that. Is Mitchell going to do 
it?” 

“It ain’t a-doing in that way, Mr. 
Fenwick. The squire is allowing two 
hundred pounds, and feyther is to get it 
done. Mr. Mitchell is to see that it’s 
done proper, no doubt.” 


46 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


« And now tell me, Mrs. Brattle, what 
has Sam been about all the time that he 
was away ?” 

“ That’s just what I cannot tell you, 
Mr. Fenwick.” 

“Your husband has asked him, I 
suppose ?” 

“ If he has, he ain’t told me, Mr. 
Fenwick. I don’t care to come atween 
them with hints and jealousies, suspect- 
ing like. Our Fan says he’s been out 
working somewhere, Lavington way ; 
but I don’t know as she knows.” 

“ Was he decent-looking when he 
came home ?” 

“ He wasn’t much amiss, Mr. Fen- 
wick. He has that way with him that 
he most always looks decent ; don’t he, 
sir 

“Had he any money 

“He had a some’at, because when he 
was working, moving the big lumber as 
though for bare life, he sent one of the 
boys for beer, and I see’d him give the 
boy the money.” 

“ I’m sorry for it. I wish he’d come 
back without a penny, and with hunger 
like a wolf in his stomach, and with his 
clothes all rags, so that he might have 
had a taste of the suffering of a vaga- 
bond’s life.” 

“Just like the Prodigal Son, Mr. 
Fenwick ?” 

“Just like the Prodigal Son. He 
would not have come back to his father 
had he not been driven by his own vices 
to live with the swine.” Then, seeing 
the tears coming down the poor mother’s 
cheeks, he added in a kinder voice, 
“ Perhaps it may be all well as it is. 
We will hope so at least, and to-morrow 
I will come down and see him. You 
need not tell him that I am coming, un- 
less he should ask where you have been.” 
Then Mrs. Brattle took her leave, and 
the«parson finished his sermon. 

That afternoon he drove his wife across 
the county to visit certain friends at 
Charlicoats, and both going and coming 
could not keep himself from talking about 
the Brattles. In the first place, he 
thought that Gilmore was wrong not to 
complete the work himself. “ Of course 
e’ll see that the money is spent and all 


that, and no doubt in this way he may 
get the job done twenty or thirty pounds 
cheaper ; but the Brattles have not in- 
terest enough in the place to justify it.” 

“ I suppose the old man liked it best 
so.” 

“The old man shouldn’t have been 
allowed to have his way. I am in an 
awful state of alarm about Sam. Much 
as I like him — or, at any rate, did like 
him — I fear he is going, or perhaps has 
gone, to the dogs. That those two men 
were housebreakers is as certain as that 
you sit there ; and I cannot doubt but 
that he has been with them over at Lav- 
ington or Devizes, or somewhere in that 
country.” 

“ But he may, perhaps, never have 
joined them in anything of that kind.” 

“A man is known by his companions. 
I would not have believed it if I had no? 
found him with the men, and traced him 
and them about the county together. 
You see that this fellow whom they call 
the Grinder was certainly the man I 
struck. I tracked him to Lavington, 
and there he was complaining of being 
sore all over his body. I don’t wonder 
that he was sore. He must be made 
like a horse to be no worse than sore. 
Well, then, that man and Sam were cer- 
tainly in our garden together.” 

“Give him a chance, Frank.” 

“ Of course I will give him a chance. 
I will give him the very best chance I 
can. I would do anything to save 
him, but I can’t help knowing what I 
know.” 

He had made very little to his wife of 
the danger of the vicarage being robbed, 
but he could npt but feel that there was 
danger. His wife had brought with her, 
among other plenishing for the house- 
hold, a considerable amount of hand- 
some plate — more than is, perhaps, gen- 
erally to be found in country parsonages 
— and no doubt this fact was known, at 
any rate, to Sam Brattle,. Had the men 
simply intended to rob the garden, they 
would not have run the risk of coming 
so near to the house windows. But 
then it certainly was true that Sam was 
not showing them the way. The parson 
did not quite know what to think about 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


47 


it, but it was clearly his duty to be on 
his guard. 

That same evening he sauntered across 
the corner of the churchyard to his neigh- 
bor the farmer. Looking out warily for 
Bone’m, he stood leaning upon the farm 
gate. Bone’m was not to be seen or 
heard, and therefore he entered and 
walked up to the back door, which in- 
deed was the only door for entrance or 
egress that was ever used. There was 
a front door opening into a little ragged 
garden, but this was as much a fixture 
as the wall. As he was knocking at the 
back door it was opened by the farmer 
himself. Mr. Fenwick had called to in- 
quire whether his friend had secured for 
him, as half promised, the possession 
of a certain brother of Bone’m’s, who 
was supposed to be of a very pugnacious 
disposition in the silent watches of the 
night. 

“ It’s no go, parson.” 

“ Why not, Mr. Trumbull ?” 

« The truth is, there be such a deal 
of talk o’ thieves about the country that 
no one likes to part with such a friend 
as that. Muster Crickly, over at Imber, 
he have another big dog, it’s true — a 
reg’lar mastiff — but he do say that 
Crunch’em be better than the mastilf, 
and he won’t let ’un go, parson — not for 
love nor money ; I wouldn’t let Bone’m 
go, I know, not for nothing.” 

Xhen Mr. Fenwick walked back to 
the vicarage, and was half induced to 
think that as Crunch’em was not to be 
had, it would be his duty to sit up at 
night and look after the plate-box himself 


CHAPTER XI. 

don’t you be afeard about me. 

On the following morning Mr. Fen- 
wick walked down to the mill. There 
was a path all along the river, and this 
was the way he took. He passed differ- 
ent points as he went, and he thought ‘ 
of the trout he had caught there or had 
wished to catch, and he thought also 
how often Sam Brattle had been with 
him as he had stood there^ delicately 
throwing his fly. In those days Sam 
4 


had been very fond of him, had thought 
it to be a great thing to be allowed to 
fish with the parson, and had been rea- 
sonably obedient. Now he would not 
even come up to the vicarage when he 
was asked to do so. For more than a 
year after the close of those amicable 
relations the parson had behaved with 
kindness and almost with affection to 
the lad. He had interceded with the 
squire when Sam was accused of poach- 
ing, had interceded with the old miller 
when Sam had given offence at home, 
and had even interceded with the con- 
stable when there was a rumor in the 
wind of offences something worse than 
these. Then had come the occasion on 
which Mr. Fenwick had told the father 
that unless the son would change his 
course evil would come of it ; and both 
father and son had taken this amiss. 
The father had told the parson to his 
face that he, the parson, had led his son 
astray ; and the son in his revenge had 
brought housebreakers down upon his 
old friend’s premises. 

« One hasn’t to do it for thanks,” said 
Mr. Fenwick, as he became a little bitter 
while thinking of all this. “ I’ll stick to 
him as long as I can, if it’s only for the 
old woman’s sake, and for the poor girl 
whom we used to love.” Then he 
thought of a clear, sweet young voice that 
used to be so well known in his village 
choir, and of the heavy curls which it 
was a delight to him to see. It had 
been a pleasure to him to have such a 
girl as Carry Brattle in his church, and 
now Carry Brattle was gone utterly, and 
would probably never be seen in a church 
again. These Brattles had suffered much, 
and he would bear with them, let the 
task of doing so be ever so hard. 

The sound of workmen was to be 
already heard as he drew near to the 
mill. There were men there pulling the 
thatch off the building, and there were 
carts and horses bringing laths, lime, 
bricks and timber, and taking the old 
rubbish away. As he crossed quickly 
by the slippery stones, he saw old Jacob 
Brattle standing before the mill looking 
on, with his hands in his breeches pock- 
ets. He was too old to do much at 


48 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


such work as this — work to which he 
was not accustomed — and was looking 
up in a sad, melancholy way, as though 
it were a work of destruction, and not 
one of reparation. 

“We shall have you here as smart as 
possible before long, Mr. Brattle,” said 
the parson. 

“ I don’t know much about smart. 
Muster Fenwick. The old place was 
a’most tumbling down, but still it would 
have lasted out my time, I’m thinking. 
If t’ squire would a’ done it fifteen years 
ago, I’d a’ thanked ’un ; but I don’t know 
what to say about it now ; and this time 
of year and all, just when the new grist 
would be coming in. If t’ squire would 
a’ thought of it in June, now ! But 
things is contrary — a’most allays so.” 
After this speech, which was made* in a 
low, droning voice, bit by bit, the miller 
took himself off and went into the house. 

At the back of the mill, perched on 
an old projecting beam, in the midst of 
dust and dirt, assisting with all the en- 
ergy of youth in the demolition of the 
roof, Mr. Fenwick saw Sam Brattle. 
He perceived at once that Sam had seen 
him, but the young man immediately 
averted his eyes and went on with his 
work. The parson did not speak at 
once, but stepped over the ruins around 
him till he came immediately under the 
beam in question. Then he called to 
the lad, and Sam was constrained to 
answer : 

“Yes, Mr. Fenwick, I am here — hard 
at work, as you see.” 

“ I do see it, and wish you luck with 
your job. Spare me ten minutes, and 
come down and speak to me.” 

“ I am in such a muck now, Mr. Fen- 
wick, tha^ I do wish to go on with it, if 
you’ll let me.” 

But Mr. Fenwick, having taken so 
much trouble to get at the young man, 
was not going to be put off in this way. 
“ Never mind your muck for a quarter 
of an hour,” he said. “ I have come 
here on purpose to find you, and I must 
speak to you.” 

“ Must !” said Sam, looking down 
with a very angry lower on his face. 

“Yes — must. Don’t be a fool now. 


You know that I do not wish to injure 
you. You are not such a coward as to 
be afraid to speak to me. Come down.” 

“ Afeard ! Who talks of being afeard ? 
Stop a moment, Mr. Fenwick, and I’ll 
be with you — not that I think it will do 
any good.” Then slowly he crept back 
along the beam and came down through 
the interior of the building. “ What is 
it, Mr. Fenwick? Here I am. I ain’t 
a bit afeard of you, at any rate.” 

“ Where have you been the last fort- 
night, Sam ?” 

“ What right have you to ask me, Mr. 
Fenwick ?” 

“ I have the right of old friendship, 
and 'perhaps also some right from my re- 
membrance of the last place in which I 
saw you. What has become of that 
man. Burrows ?” 

“ What Burrows ?” 

“Jack the Grinder, whom I hit on the 
back the night I made you prisoner. 
Do you think that you were doing well 
in being in my garden about midnight in 
company with such a fellow as that — 
one of the most notorious jailbirds in 
the county ? Do you know that I could 
have had you arrested and sent to prison 
at once ?” 

“ I know you couldn’t do nothing of 
the kind.” 

“You know this, Sam — that I’ve no 
wish to do it, that nothing would give 
me more pain than doing it. But you 
must feel that if we should hear now of 
any depredation about the county, we 
couldn’t — I at least could not — help 
thinking of you. And I am told that 
there will be depredations, Sam. Are 
you concerned in these matters ?” 

“No, I am not,” said Sam, doggedly. 

“Are you disposed to tell me why 
you were in my garden, and why those 
men were with you ?” 

“We were down in the churchyard, 
and the gate was open, and so we walked 
up : that was all. If we’d meant to do 
anything out of the way, we shouldn’t a’ 
come like that, nor yet at that hour. 
Why, it warn’t midnight, Mr. Fenwick!” 

“ But why was there such a man as 
Burrows with you ? Do you think he 
was fit company for you, Sam ?” 


‘ v - 







“ ‘/ hope it will be all right now, Mr. Fenwick^ the girl said .'' — [Page 49.] 




THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


49 


“ I suppose a chap may choose his 
own company, Mr. Fenwick ?” 

“Yes, he may, and go to the gallows 
because he chooses it, as you are doing.” 

“ Very well : if that’s all you’ve got to 
say to me. I’ll go back to my work.” 

“ Stop one moment, Sam. That is 
not quite all. I caught you the other 
night where you had no business to be, 
and for the sake of your father and 
mother, and for old recollections, I let 
you go. Perhaps I was wrong, but I 
don’t mean to hark back upon that 
again.” 

“You are a-harking back on it ever 
so often.” 

“ I shall take no further steps about 
it.” 

“There ain’t no steps to be taken, 
Mr. Fenwick.” 

“ But I see that you intend to defy 
me, and therefore I am bound to tell 
you that I shall keep my eye upon you.” 

“ Don’t you be afeard about me, Mr. 
Fenwick.” 

“ And if I hear of those fellows — Bur- 
rows and the other — being about the 
place any more, I shall give the police 
notice that they are associates of yours. 
I don’t think so badly of you yet, Sam, 
as to believe you would bring your fath- 
er’s gray hairs with sorrow to the grave 
by turning thief and housebreaker ; but 
when I hear of your being away from 
home and nobody knowing where you 
are, and find that you are living without 
decent employment, and prowling about 
at nights with robbers and cut-throats, I 
cannot but be afraid. Do you know that 
the squire recognized you that night as 
well as I ?” 

“ The squire ain’t nothing to me ; and 
if you’ve done with me now, Mr. Fen- 
wick, I’ll go back to my work.” So 
saying, Sam .Brattle again mounted up 
to the roof, and the parson returned 
discomfited to the front of the building. 
He had not intended to see any of the 
family, but as he was crossing the little 
bridge, meaning to go home round by 
the Privets, he was stopped by Fanny 
Brattle. 

“ I hope it will be all right, now, Mr. 
Fenwick,” the girl said. 


“I hope so too, Fanny. But you 
and your mother should keep an eye on 
him, so that he may know that his 
goings and comings are noticed. I dare 
say it will be all right as long as the ex- 
citement of these changes is going on. 
but there is nothing so bad as that he 
should be in and out oT the house at 
nights, and not feel that his absence is 
noticed.^ It will be better always to ask 
him, though he be ever so cross. Tell 
your mother I say so.” 


CHAPTER XII. 
bone’m and his master. 

After leaving the mill, Mr. Fenwick 
went up to the squire, and, in contra- 
diction as it were of all the hard things 
that he had said to Sam Brattle, spoke 
to the miller’s landlord in the lad’s favor. 
He was hard at work now at any rate, 
and seemed inclined to stick to his work. 
And there had been an independence 
about him which the parson had half 
liked, even while he had been offended 
at him. 

Gilmore differed altogether from his 
friend: “What was he doing in your 
garden ? What was he doing hidden in 
Trumbull’s hedge ? When I see fellows 
hiding in ditches at night, I don’t sup- 
pose that they’re after much good.” 

Mr. Fenwick made some lame apology 
even for these offences. Sam had, per- 
haps, not really known the extent of the 
iniquity of the rhen with whom he had 
associated, and had come up the garden , 
probably with a view to the fruit. The 
matter was discussed at great length, 
and the squire at last promised that he 
would give Sam another chance in regard 
to his own estimation of the young man’s 
character. » 

On that same evening — or rather after 
the evening was over, for it was nearly 
^ twelve o’clock at night — Fenwick walked 
round the garden and the orchard with 
his wife. There was no moon now, and 
the night was very dark. They stopped 
for a minute at the wicket leading into 
the churchyard, and it was evident to 
, them that Bone’m from the farmyard at 


50 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


the other side of the church had heard 
them, for he commenced a low growl, 
with which the parson was by this time 
well acquainted. 

“ Good dog, good dog !” said the par- 
son, in a low voice. “ I wish we had 
his brother, I know.” 

“ He would only be tearing the maids 
and biting the children,” said Mrs. Fen- 
wick. « I hate having a savage beast 
about.” 

« But it would be so nice to catch a 
burglar and crunch him. I feel almost 
bloodthirsty since I hit that fellow with 
the life-preserver, and find that I didn’t 
kill him.” 

“I know, Frank, you’re thinking 
about these thieves more than you like 
to tell me.” 

“ I was thinking just then that if they 
were to come and take all the silver, it 
wouldn’t do much harm. We should 
have to buy German plate, and nobody 
would know the difference.” 

“ Suppose they murdered us all.” 

“ They never do that now. The pro- 
fession is different from what it used to 
be. They only go where they know 
they can find a certain amount of spoil, 
and where they can get it without much 
danger. I don’t think housebreakers 
ever cut throats in these days. They’re 
too fond of their own.” 

Then they both agreed that if these 
rumors of housebreakings were con- 
tinued, they would send away the plate 
some day to be locked up in safe-keep- 
ing at Salisbury. After that they went 
to bed. 

On the next morning — the Sunday 
morning — at a few minutes before seven, 
the parson was awakened by his groom 
at his bed-room door. “What is it, 
Roger he asked. 

“For the love of God, sir, get up: 
they’ve been and murdered Mr. Trum- 
bull !” Mrs. Fenwick, who heard the 
tidings, screamed, and Mr. Fenwick was 
out of bed and into his trowsers in half 
a minute. In another half minute Mrs. 
Fenwick, clothed in her dressing-gown, 
was up stairs among her children. No 
doubt she thought that as soon as the 
poor farmer had been despatched the 


murderers would naturally pass on into 
her nursery. Mr. Fenwick did not be- 
lieve the tidings. If a man be hurt in 
the hunting-field, it is always said that 
he’s killed. If the kitchen flue be on 
fire, it is always said that the house is 
burned down. Something, however, had 
probably happened at Farmer Trum- 
bull’s, and down went the parson across 
the garden and orchard and through the 
churchyard as quick as his legs would 
carry him. In the farmyard he found 
quite a crowd of men, including the two 
constables and three or four of the lead- 
ing tradesmen in the village. The first 
thing that he saw was the dead body of 
Bone’m, the dog. He was stiff and 
stark, and had been poisoned. 

“ How’s Mr. Trumbull ?” he asked 
of the nearest bystander. 

“ Laws, parson ! ain’t ye heard said 
the man. “ They’ve knocked his skull 
open with a hammer, and he’s as dead — 
as dead.” 

Hearing this, the parson turned round 
and made his way into the house. There 
was not a doubt about it. The farmer 
had been murdered during the night, and 
his money carried off. Up -stairs Mr. 
Fenwick made his way to the farmer’s 
bed-room, and there lay the body. Mr. 
Crittenden, the village doctor, was there, 
and a crowd of men and an old woman 
or two. Among the women was Trum- 
bull’s sisterj, the wife of a neighboring 
farmer, .^o, with her husband, a tenant 
of Mr. Gilrrtore’s, had come over just 
before the arrival of Mr. Fenwick. The 
body had been found on the stairs, and 
it was quite clear that the farmer had 
■ fought desperately with the man or men 
before he had received the blow which 
despatched him. 

“ I told ’um how it be — I did, I did — 
when he would ’a all that money by 
’um.” This was the explanation given 
by Mr. Trumbull’s sister, Mrs. Boddle. 

It seemed that Trumbull had had 
in his possession over a hundred and 
fifty pounds, of which the greater part 
was in gold, and that he kept this in a 
money-box in his bed-room. One of 
the two servants who lived in his ser- 
vice — he himself had been a widower 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


51 


without children — declared that she had 
always known that at night he took the 
box out of his cupboard into bed with 
him. She had seen it there more than 
once when she had taken him up drinks 
when he was unwell. When first inter- 
rogated, she declared that she did not 
remember at that moment that she had 
ever told anybody — she thought she had 
never told anybody : at last she would 
swear that she had never spoken a word 
about it to a single soul. She was sup- 
posed to be a good girl, had come of 
decent people, and was well known by 
Mr. Fenwick, of w'hose congregation 
she was one. Her name was Agnes 
Pope. The other servant was an elderly 
woman, who had been in the house all 
her life, but was unfortunately deaf. She 
had known very well about the money, 
and had always been afraid about it : had 
very often spoken to her master about 
it, but never a word to Agnes. She had 
been woken in the night — that was, as it 
turned out, about two a. m. — by the girl, 
who slept with her, and who declared 
that she had heard a great noise as of 
somebody tumbling — a very great noise 
indeed, as though there were ever so 
many people tumbling. For a long 
time, for perhaps an hour, they had Iain 
still, being afraid to move. Then the 
elder woman had lighted a candle and 
gone down from the garret in which 
they slept. The first thing she saw was 
the body of her master in his shirt upon 
the stairs. She had then called up the 
only other human being who slept on 
the premises — a shepherd who 'had lived 
for thirty years with Trumbull. This 
man had thrown open the house and had 
gone for assistance, and had found the 
body of the dead dog in the yard. 

Before nine o’clock the facts as they 
have been told were known everywhere, 
and the squire was down on the spot. 
The man — or, as it was presumed, men 
— had entered by the unaccustomed front 
door, which was so contrived as to afford 
the easiest possible mode of getting into 
the house ; whereas the back door, which 
was used by everybody, had been bolted 
and barred with all care. The men 
must probably have entered by the 


churchyard and the back gate of the 
farmyard, as that had been found to be 
unlatched, whereas the gate leading out 
on to the road had been found closed. 
The farmer himself had always been very 
careful to close both these gates when 
he let out Bone’m before going to bed. 
Poor Bone’m had been enticed to his 
death by a piece of poisoned meat, 
thrown to him probably some consider- 
able time before the attack was made. 

Who were the murderers That of 
course was the first question. It need 
hardly be said with how sad a heart Mr. 
Fenwick discussed this matter with the 
squire. Of course inquiry must be made 
of the manner in which Sam Brattle had 
passed the night. Heavens ! how would 
it be with the poor family if he had been 
concerned in such an affair as this ? And 
then there came across the parson’s 
mind a remembrance that Agnes Pope 
and Sam Brattle had been seen by him 
together on more Sundays than one. 
In his anxiety, and with much impru- 
dence, he went to the girl and questioned 
her again : 

“For your own sake, Agnes, tell me, 
are you sure you never mentioned about 
the money-box to — Sam Brattle 

The girl blushed and hesitated, and 
then said that she was quite sure she 
never had. She didn’t think she had 
ever said ten words to Sam since she 
knew about the box. 

“ But five words would be sufficient, 
Agnes.” 

“ Then them five words was never 
spoke, sir,” said the girl. But still she 
blushed, and the parson thought that her 
manner was not in her favor. 

It was necessary that the parson 
should attend to his church, but the 
squire, who was a magistrate, went down 
with the two constables to the mill. 
There they found Sam and his father, 
with Mrs. Brattle and Fanny. No one 
went to the church from the mill on that 
day. The news had reached them of 
the murder, and they all felt — though no 
one of them had so said to any other — 
that something might in some way con- 
nect them with the deed that had been 
done. Sam had hardly spoken since he 


52 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


had heard of Mr. Trumbull’s death ; 
though when he saw that his father was 
pierfectly silent, as one struck with some 
sudden dread, he bade the old man hold 
up his head and fear nothing. Old Brat- 
tle, when so addressed, seated himself 
in his arm-chair, and there remained 
without a word till the magistrate and 
the constables were among them. 

There were not many at church, and 
Mr. Fenwick made the service very short. 
He could not preach the sermon which 
he had prepared, but said a few words 
on the terrible catastrophe which had 
occurred so near to them. This man 
who was now lying w'ithin only a few 
yards of them, with his brains knocked 
out, had been alive among them, strong 
and in good health, yesterday evening ! 
And there had come into their peaceful 
village miscreants who had^een led on 
from self-indulgence to idleness, and 
from idleness to theft, and from theft to 
murder ! We all know the kind of words 
which the parson spoke, and the thrill 
of attention with which they would be 
heard. Here was a man who had been 
close to them, and therefore the murder 
came home to them all, and filled them 
with an excitement which, alas ! was 
not probably without some feeling of 
pleasure. But the sermon — if sermon 
it could be called — was very short ; and 
when it was over the parson also hurried 
down to the mill. 

It had already been discovered that 
Sam Brattle had certainly been out dur- 
in'g the night. He had himself denied 
this at first, saying that though he had 
been the last to go to bed, he had gone 
to bed at about eleven, and had not left 
the mill-house till late in the morning ; 
but his sister had heard him rise, and 
had seen his body through the gloom as 
he passed beneath the window of the 
room in which she slept. She had not 
heard him return, but when she arose at 
six had found out that he was then in 
the house. He manifested no anger 
against her when she gave this testi- 
mony, but acknowledged that he had 
been out — that he had wandered up to 
the road ; and explained his former de- 
nial frankly — or with well-assumed frank- 


ness — by saying that he would, if possi- 
ble, for his father’s and mother’s sake, 
have concealed the fact that he had been 
away, knowing that his absence would 
give rise to suspicions which would well- 
nigh break their hearts. He had not, 
however — so he said — been any nearer to 
Bullhampton than the point of the road 
opposite to the lodge of Hampton Privets, 
from whence the lane turned down to the 
mill. What had he been doing down 
there ? He had done nothing, but sit 
on a stile and smoked by the roadside. 
Had he seen any strangers ? Here he 
paused, but at last declared that he had 
seen none, but had heard the sound 
of wheels and of a pony’s feet upon the 
road. The vehicle, whatever it was, must 
have passed on toward Bullhampton just 
before he reached the road. Had he 
followed the vehicle ? No : he had 
thought of doing so, but had not. Could 
he guess who was in the vehicle ? By 
this time many surmises had been made 
aloud as to Jack the Grinder and his 
companion, and it had become generally 
known that the parson had encountered 
two such men in his own garden some 
nights previously. Sam, when he was 
pressed, said that the idea had come 
into his mind that the vehicle was the 
Grinder’s cart. He had no knowledge, 
he said, that the man was coming to 
Bullhampton on that night, but the man 
had said in his hearing that he would like 
to strip the parson’s peaches. He was 
asked also about Farmer Trumbull’s 
money. He declared that he had never 
heard that the farmer kept money in 
the house. He did know that the farm- 
er was accounted to be a very saving 
man, but that was all that he knew. He 
was as much surprised, he said, as any 
of them at what had occurred. Had the 
man turned the other way and robbed 
the parson, he would have been less sur- 
prised. He acknowledged that he had 
called the parson a turncoat and a med- 
dling telltale in the presence of three 
men. 

All this ended, of course, in Sam’s 
arrest. He had himself seen from the 
first that it would be so, and he had bade 
his mother take comfort and hold up her 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


53 


l)ead. “It won’t be for long, mother. 
I ain’t got any of the money, and they 
can’t bring it nigh me.” He was taken 
away to be locked up at Heytesbury that 
night, in order that he might be brought 
before the bench of magistrates, which 
would sit at that place on Tuesday. 
Squire Gilmore for the present commit- 
ted him. 

The parson remained for some time 
with the old man and his wife after Sam 
was gone, but he soon found that he 
could be of no service by doing so. The 
miller himself would not speak, and Mrs. 
Brattle was utterly prostrated by her 
husband’s misery. 

“ I do not know what to say about it,” 
said Mr. Fenwick to his wife that night. 
“The suspicion is very strong, but I 
cannot say that I have an opinion one 
way or the other.” 

There was no sermon in Bullhampton 
church on that Sunday afternoon. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

CAPTAIN MARKABLE AND HIS FATHER. 

Only that it is generally conceived 
that in such a history as is this the' 
writer of the tale should be able to make 
his points so clear by words that no 
further assistance should be needed, I 
should be tempted here to insert a prop- 
erly illustrated pedigree tree of the Mar- 
rable family. The Marrable family is 
of very old standing in England, the 
first baronet having been created by 
James I., and there having been Mar- 
rabies — as is well known by all attentive 
readers of English history — engaged in 
the Wars of the Roses, and again others 
very conspicuous in the religious perse- 
cutions of the children of Henry VIII. 

I do not know that they always behaved 
with consistency, but they held their 
heads up after a fashion, and got them- 
selves talked of, and were people of note 
in the country. They were Cavaliers in 
the time of Charles I. and of Cromwell — 
as became men of blood and gentlemen — 
but it is not recorded of them that they 
sacrificed much in the cause ; and when 
William III. became king they submitted 


with a good grace to the new order of 
things. A certain Sir Thomas Marrable 
was member for his county in the reigns 
of George I. and George II., and enjoy- 
ed a lucrative confidence with Walpole. 
Then there came a blustering, roystering 
Sir Thomas, who, together with a fine 
man and gambler as his heir, brought 
the property to rather a low ebb ; so that 
when Sir Gregory, the grandfather of 
our Miss Marrable, came to the title in 
the early days of George III., he was 
not a rich man. His two sons, another 
Sir Gregory and a General Marrable, 
died long before the days of which we 
are writing — Sir Gregory in 1815, and 
the general in 1820. That Sir Gregory 
was the second of the name — the second, 
at least, as mentioned in these pages. 
He had been our Miss Marrable’s uncle, 
and the general had been her father and 
the father of Mrs. Lowther, Mary’s 
mother. A third Sir Gregory was 
reigning at the time of our story — a 
very old gentleman with one single son, 
a fourth Gregory. Now the residence 
of Sir Gregory was at Dunripple Park, 
just on the borders of Warwickshire and 
Worcestershire, but in the latter county. 
The property was small, for a country 
gentleman with a title — not much ex- 
ceeding three thousand a year — and 
there was no longer any sitting in Par- 
liament or keeping of race-horses, or 
indeed any season in town for the pres- 
ent race of Marrables. The existing Sir 
Gregory was a very quiet man, and his 
son and only child, a man now about 
forty years of age, lived mostly at home, 
and occupied himself with things of an- 
tiquity. He was remarkably well read 
in the history of his own country, and it 
had been understood for the last twenty 
years by the antiquarian, archaeological 
and other societies that he was the pro- 
jector of a new theory about Stonehenge, 
and that his book on the subject was 
almost ready. Such were the two sur- 
viving members of the present senior 
branch of the family. But Sir Gregory 
had two brothers — the, younger of the 
two being Parson John Marrable, die 
present rector of St. Peter’s, Lowtown, 
and the occupier of the house within the 


54 




THE VICAR OF 

heavy slate-colored gates, where ^e lived 
a bachelor life, as had done before him 
his cousin the late rector ; the elder 
being a certain Colonel Marrable. The 
Colonel Marrable again had a son who 
was a Captain Walter Marrable ; and 
after him the confused reader shall be 
introduced to no more of the Marrable 
family. The enlightened reader will 
have by this time perceived that Miss 
Mary Lowther and Captain Walter Mar- 
rable were second cousins ; and he will 
also have perceived, if he has given his 
mind fully to the study, that the present 
Parson John Marrable had come into the 
living after the death of a cousin of the 
same generation as himself, but of lower 
standing in the family. It was so ; and 
by this may be seen how little the Sir 
Gregory of the present day had been 
able to do for his brother ; and perhaps 
it may also be imagined from this that 
the present clergyman at Coring Low- 
town had been able to do very little for 
himself. Nevertheless, he was a kindly- 
hearted, good, sincere old man — hot very 
bright indeed, nor peculiarly fitted for 
preaching the gospel, but he was much 
liked, and he kept a curate, though his 
income out of the living was small. Now 
it so happened that Captain Marrable — 
Walter Marrable — came to stay with his 
uncle the parson about the same time 
that Mary Lowther returned to Coring. 

“You remember Walter, do you not?” 
said Miss Marrable to her niece. 

“ Not the least in the world. I re- 
member there was a Walter when I was 
at Dunripple. But that was ten years 
ago, and boy cousins and girl cousins 
never fraternize.” 

“ I suppose he was nearly a young 
man then, and you were a child ?” 

“ He was still at school, though just 
leaving it. He is seven years older than 
I am.” 

“ He is coming to stay with Parson 
John.” 

“You don’t say so, Aunt Sarah! 
What will such a man as Captain Mar- 
rable do at Lorihg ?” Then Aunt Sarah 
explained all that she knew, and perhaps 
suggested more than she knew. Walter 
Marrable had quarreled with his father 


BULLHAMPTON. 

the colonel — with whom, indeed every- 
body of the name of Marrable had always 
been quarreling, and who was believed by 
Miss Marrable to be the very mis- 

chief himself. He was a man always in 
debt, who had broken his wife’s heart, 
who lived with low company and dis- 
graced the family, who had been more 
than once arrested, on whose behalf all 
the family interest had been expended, 
so that nobody else could get anything, 
and who gambled and drank and did 
whatever wicked things a wicked old 
colonel living at Portsmouth could do. 
And indeed, hitherto, Miss Marrable had 
entertained opinions hardly more chari- 
table respecting the son than she had 
done in regard to the father. She had 
disbelieved in this branch of the Mar- 
rabies altogether. Captain Marrable had 
lived with his father a good deal — at least 
so she had understood — and therefore 
could not but be bad. And moreover, 
our Miss Sarah Marrable had through- 
out her whole life been somewhat es- 
tranged from the elder branches of the 
family. Her father, Walter, had been — 
so she thought — injured by his brother 
Sir .Gregory, and there had been some 
law proceedings, not quite amicable, be- 
tween her brother the parson and the 
present Sir Gregory. She respected 
Sir Gregory as the head of the family, 
but she never went now to Dunripple, 
and knew nothing of Sir Gregory’s heir. 
Of the present Parson John she had 
thought very little before h^ had come 
to Loring. Since he had been living 
there she had found that^ blood was 
thicker than water — as she would say — 
and they two were intimate. When she 
heard that Captain Marrable was coming 
because he had quarreled with his father, 
she began to think that perhaps it might 
be as well that she should' allow herself 
to meet this new cousin. 

“ What do you think of your cousin, 
Walter ?” the old clergyman said to his 
nephew one evening, after the two ladies, 
who had been dining at the rectory, had 
left them. It was the first occasion on 
which Walter Marrable had met Mary 
since his coming to Loring. 

“ I remember her as well as if it were 




THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


55 


yesterday, at Dunripple. She was a 
little girl then, and I thought her the 
most beautiful little girl in the world.” 

“ We all think her very beautiful still.” 

“ So she is ; as lovely as ever she can 
stand. But she does not seem to have 
much to say for herself. I remember 
when she was a little girl she never 
would speak.” 

“ I fancy she can talk when she 
pleases, Walter. But you mustn’t fall 
in love with her.” 

« I won’t, if I can help it.” 

“ In the first place, I think she is as 
good as engaged to a fellow with a very- 
pretty property in Wiltshire, and in the 
next place she hasn’t got one shilling.” 

« There is not much danger. I am 
not inclined to trouble myself about any 
girl in my present mood, even if she had 
the pretty property herself and wasn’t 
engaged to anybody. I suppose I shall 
get over it some day, but I feel just at 
present as though I couldn’t say a kind 
word to a human being.” 

“ Psha ! psha ! that’s nonsense, Wal- 
ter. Take things coolly. They’re^more 
likely to come right, and they won’t be 
so troublesome, even if they don’t.” 
Such was the philosophy of Parson John ; 
for the sake of digesting which the cap- 
tain lit a cigar and went out to smoke it, 
standing at one of the open slate-colored 
gates. 

It was said in the first chapter of this 
story that Mr. Gilmore was one of the 
heroes whose deeds the story undertakes 
to narrate, and a hint was perhaps ex- 
pressed that of aU the heroes he was the 
favorite. Captain Marrable is, however, 
another hero, and as such some word or 
two must be said of him. He was a 
better-looking man, certainly, than Mr. 
Gilmore, though perhaps his personal 
appearance did not at first sight give to 
the observer so favorable an idea of his 
character as did that of the other gentle- 
man. Mr. Gilmore was to be read at a 
glance as an honest, straightforward, 
well-behaved country squire, whose word 
might be taken for anything — who might, 
perhaps, like to have his own way, but 
who could hardly do a cruel or an unfair 
thing. He was just such a man to look 


at as a prudent mother would select as 
one to whom she might entrust her 
daughter with safety. Now Walter Mar- 
rable’s countenance was of a very^ differ- 
ent die. He had served in India, and 
the naturally dark color of his face had 
thus become very swarthy. His black 
hair curled round his head, but the curls 
on his brow were becoming very thin, 
as though age were already telling on 
them, and yet he was four or five years 
younger than Mr. Gilmore. His eye- 
brows were thick and heavy, and his 
eyes seemed to be black. They were 
eyes which were used without much mo- 
tion ; and when they were dead set, as 
they were not unfrequently, it would 
seem as though he were defying those 
on whom he looked. Thus he made 
many afraid of him, and many who were 
not afraid of him disliked him because 
of a certain ferocity which seemed to 
characterize his face. He wore no beard 
beyond a heavy black moustache, which 
quite covered his upper lip. His nose 
was long and straight, his mouth large 
and his chin square. No doubt he was 
a handsome man. And he looked to be 
a tall man, though in truth he lacked two 
full inches of the normal six feet. He 
was broad across the chest, strong on 
his legs, and was altogether such a man - 
to look at that few would care to quarrel 
with him, and many would think that he 
was disposed to quarrel. Of his nature 
he was not quarrelsome, but he. was a 
man who certainly had received much 
injury. It need not be explained at 
length how his money affairs had gone 
wrong with him. He should have in- 
herited — and indeed did inherit — a for- 
tune from his mother’s family, of which 
his father had contrived absolutely to rob 
him. It was only within the last month 
that he had discovered that his fathei 
had succeeded in laying his hands on 
certainly the bulk of his money, and it 
might be upon all. Words between them 
had been very bitter. The father, with 
a cigar between his teeth, had told his 
son that this was the fortune of war ; 
that if justice had been done him at his 
marriage the money would have been his 
own ; and that, by G — , he was very 


56 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


sorry, and couldn’t say anything more. 
The son had called the father a liar and 
a swindler ; as indeed w'as the truth, 
though the son was doubtless wrong to 
say so to the author of his being. The 
father had threatened the son with his 
horsewhip ; and so they had parted with- 
in ten days of Walter Marrable’s return 
from India. 

Walter had written to his two uncles, 
asking their advice as to saving the 
wreck, if anything might be saved. Sir 
Gregory had written back to say that he 
was an old man, that he was greatly 
grieved at the misunderstanding, and 
that Messrs. Block & Curling were the 
family lawyers. Parson John invited his 
nephew to come down to Loring Low- 
town. Captain Marrable went to Block 
& Curling, who were by no means con- 
solatory, and accepted his uncle’s in- 
vitation. 

It was but three days after the first 
meeting between the two cousins, that 
they were to be seen one evening walk- 
ing together along the banks of the Lur- 
well, a little river which at Loring some- 
times takes the appearance of a canal, 
and sometimes of a natural stream. But 
it is commercial, having connection with 
the Kennet and Avon navigation ; and 
long, slow, ponderous barges, with heavy, 
dirty, sleepy bargemen, and rickety, ill- 
used barge-horses, are common in the 
neighborhood. In parts it is very pretty, 
as it runs under the chalky downs, and 
there are a multiplicity of locks, and the 
turf of the sheep-walks comes up to the 
towing-path ; but in the close neighbor- 
hood of the town the canal is straight 
and uninteresting, the ground is level, 
and there is a scattered community of 
small, straight-built, light-brick houses, 
which are in themselves so ugly that 
they are incompatible with anything that 
is pretty in landscape. 

Parson John — always so called to dis- 
tinguish him from the late parson, his 
cousin, who had been the Rev. James 
Marrable — had taken occasion on behalf 
of his nephew to tell the story of his 
wrong to Miss Marrable, and by Miss 
Marrable it had been told to Mary. To 
both these ladies the thing seemed to be 


so horrible — the idea that a father should 
have robbed his son — that the stern 
ferocity of the slow-moving eyes was 
forgiven, and they took him to their 
hearts — if not for love, at least for pity. 
Twenty thousand pounds ought to have 
become the property of Walter Marrable 
when some maternal relation had died. 
It had seemed hard that the father should 
have none of it, and on the receipt in 
India of representations from the colonel, 
Walter had signed certain fatal papers, 
the effect of which was that the father 
had laid his hands on pretty nearly the 
whole, if not on the whole, of the money, 
and had caused it to vanish. There was 
now a question whether some five thou- 
sand pounds might not be saved. If so, 
Walter would stay in England : if not, 
he would exchange and go back to India, 
“ or,” as he said himself, “ to the devil.” 

« Don’t speak of it in that way,” said 
Mary. 

“The worst of it is,” said he, “that I 
am ashamed of myself for being so ab- 
solutely cut up about money. A man 
should be able to bear that kind of thing, 
but this hits one all round.” 

“ I think you bear it very well.” 

“ No, I don’t. I didn’t bear it well 
when I called my father a swindler. I 
didn’t bear it well when I swore that I 
would put him in prison for robbing me. 
I don’t bear it well now, when I think 
of it every moment. But I do so hate 
India, and I had so absolutely made up 
my mind never to return. If it hadn’t 
been that I knew that this fortune was 
to be mine, I could have saved money, 
hand over hand.” 

“ Can’t you live on your pay here ?” 

“No !” He answered her almost as 
though he were angry with her. “ If I 
had been used all my life to the strictest 
economies, perhaps I might do so. Some 
men do, no doubt, but I am too old to 
begin it. There is the choice of two 
things — to blow my brains out^ or go 
back.” 

“You are not such a coward as that.” 

“ I don’t know. I ain’t sure that it 
would be cowardice. If there were any- 
body I could injure by doing it, it would 
be cowardly.” 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


57 


« The family,” suggested Mary. 

“ What does Sir Gregory care for me ? 
I’ll show you his letter to me some day. 
I don’t think it would be cowardly at all 
to get away from such a lot.” 

“ I am sure you won’t do that, Cap- 
tain Marrable.” 

“ Think what it is to know that your 
father is a swindler. Perhaps that is 
the worst of it all. F^cy talking or 
thinking of one’s family after that. I 
like my uncle John. He is very kind, 
and has offered to lend me one hundred 
and fifty pounds, which I am sure he 
can’t afford to lose, and which I am too 
honest to take. ^ But even he hardly 
sees it. He calls it a misfortune, and 
I’ve no doubt would shake hands with 
his brother to-morrow.” 

“So would you, if he were really 
sorry.” 

“ No, Mary : nothing on earth shall 
ever induce me to set my eyes on him 
again willingly. He has destroyed all 
the world for me. He should have had 
half of it without a word. When he 
used to whine to me in his letters, and 
say how cruelly he had been treated, I 
always made up my mind that he should 
have half the income for life. It was 
because he should not want till I came 
home that I enabled him to do what he 
has done. And now he has robbed me 
of every cursed shilling ! I wonder 
whether I shall ever get my mind free 
from it?” 

“ Of course you will.” 

“It seems now that my heart is wrap- 
ped in lead.” 

As they were coming home she put 
her hand upon his arm, and asked him 
to promise her to withdraw that threat. 

“ Why should I withdraw it ? Who 
cares for me ?” 

“ We all care : my aunt cares — I care.” 

“ The threat means nothing, Mary. 
People who make such threats don’t 
carry them out. Of course I shall go 
on and endure it. The worst of all is, 
that the. whole thing makes me so un- 
manly — makes such a beast of me. But 
I’ll try to get over it.” 

Mary Lowther thought that upon the 
whole he bore his misfortune very well. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

COUSINHOOD. 

Mary Lowther and her cousin had 
taken their walk together on Monday 
evening, and on the next morning she 
received the following letter from Mrs. 
Fenwick. When it reached her she had 
as yet heard nothing of the Bullhampton 
tragedy : 

“Vicarage, Monday, Sept, i 186-. 

“Dearest Mary: 

“ I suppose you will have heard be- 
fore you get this of the dreadful murder 
that has taken place here, and which has 
so startled and horrified us that we hard- 
ly know what we are doing even yet. It 
is hard to say why a thing should be 
worse because it is close, but it certainly 
is so. Had it been in the next parish, 
or even farther off in this parish, I do 
not think that I should feel it so much ; 
and then we knew the old man so well ; 
and then again — which makes it worst 
of all — we all of us are unable to get rid 
of a suspicion that one whom we knew, 
and we liked, has been a participator in 
the crime. 

“ It seems that it must have been 
about two o’clock on Sunday morning 
that Mr. Trumbull was killed. It was, 
at any rate, between one and three. As 
far as they can judge, they think that 
there must have been three men con- 
cerned. You remember how we used to 
joke about poor Mr. Trumbull’s dog. 
Well, he was poisoned first — probably 
an hour before the men got into the 
house. It has been discovered that the 
foolish old man kept a large sum of 
money by him in a box, and that he 
always took this box into bed with him. ' 
The woman who lived in the house with 
him used to see it there. No doubt the 
thieves had heard of this, and both 
Frank and Mr. Gilmore think that the 
girl, Agnes Pope, whom you will remem- 
ber in the choir, told about it. She lived 
with Mr. Trumbull, and we all thought 
her a very good girl, though she was too 
fond of that young man, Sam Brattle. 

“They think that the men did not 
mean to do the murder, but that the old 
man fought so hard for his money that 
they were driven to it. His body was 


58 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON, 


not in the room, but on the top of the 
stairs, and his temple had been split 
open with a blow of a hammer. The 
hammer lay beside him, and was one 
belonging to the house. Mr. Gilmore 
says that there was great craft in their 
using a weapon which they did not bring 
with them. Of course they cannot be 
traced by the hammer. 

“ They got off with one hundred and 
fifty pounds in the box, and did not 
touch anything else. Everybody feels 
quite sure that they knew all about the 
money, and that when Mr. Gilmore saw 
them that night down at the churchyard 
corner they were prowling about with a 
view of seeing how they could get into 
the farmer’s house, and not into the 
vicarage. Frank thinks that when he 
afterward found them in our place, Sam 
Brattle had brought them in with a kind 
of wild idea of taking the fruit, but that 
the men, of their own account, had come 
round to reconnoitre the house. They 
both say that there can be no doubt 
about the men having been the same. 
Then comes the terrible question wheth- 
er Sam Brattle, the son of that dear wo- 
man at the mill, has been one of the 
murderers. He had been at home all 
the previous day, working very hard at the 
repairs — which are being done in obe- 
dience to your orders, my dear — but he 
certainly was out on the Saturday night. 

“It is very hard to get at any man’s 
belief in such matters, but, as far as I 
can understand them, I don’t think that 
either Frank or Mr. Gilmore do really 
believe that he was there. Frank says 
that it will go very hard with him, and 
Mr. Gilmore lias committed him. The 
magistrates are to sit to-morrow at 
Heytesbury, and Mr. Gilmore will be 
there. He has, as you may be sure, be- 
haved as well as possible, and has quite 
altered in his manner to the old people. 
I -was at the mill this morning : Brattle 
Oimself would not speak to me, but I sat 
for an hour with Mrs. 1 b rattle and Fanny. 
It makes it almost the more melancholy 
having all the rubbish and building 
things about, and yet the work stopped. 

“ Fanny Brattle has behaved so well ! 
It was she who told that her brother 


had been out at night. Mr. Gilmore 
says that when the question was asked 
in his presence, she answered it in her 
own quiet, simple way, without a mo- 
ment’s doubt; but since that she has 
never ceased to assert her conviction 
that her brother has had nothing to do 
either with the murder or with the rob- 
bery. If it had not been for this, Mrs. 
Brattle would, I think, have sunk under 
the load. Fanny says the same thing 
constantly to her father. He scolds her 
and bids her hold her tongue, but she 
goes on, and I think it has some effect 
even on him. The whole place does 
look such a picture of ruin ! It would 
break your heart to s*ee it. And then, 
when one looks at the father and mother, 
one remembers about that other child, 
and is almost tempted to ask why such 
misery should have fallen upon parents 
who have been honest, sober and indus- 
trious. Can it really be that the man is 
being punished here on earth because he 
will not believe ? When I hinted this 
to Frank, he turned upon me and scolded 
me, and told me I was measuring the 
Almighty God with a foot-rule. But 
rnen were punished in the Bible because 
they did not believe. Remember the 
Baptist’s father. But I never dare to go 
on with Frank on these matters. 

“ I am so full of this affair of poor 
Mr. Trumbull, and so anxious about 
Sam Brattle, that I cannot now write 
about anything else. I can only say 
that no man ever behaved with greater 
kindness and propriety than Harry Gil- 
more, who has had to act as magistrate. 
Poor Fanny Brattle has to go to Heytes- 
bury to-morrow to give her evidence. At 
first they said that they must take the 
father also, but he is to be spared for the 
present. 

“ I should tell you that Sam himself 
declares that he got to know these men 
at a place where he was at work, brick- 
making, near Devizes. He had quarreled 
with his father, and had got a job there, 
with high wages. He used to be out at 
night with them, and acknowledges that 
he joined one of them, a man named 
Burrows, in stealing a brood of pea-fowl 
which some poulterers wanted to buy. 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


59 


He says he looked on it as a joke. Then 
it seems he had some spite against Trum- 
bull’s dog, and that this man Burrows 
came over here on purpose to take the 
dog away. This, according to his story, 
is all that he knows of the man ; and he 
says that on that special Saturday night 
he had not the least idea that Burrows 
was at Bullhampton till he heard the 
sound of a certain cart on the road. I 
tell you all this, as I am sure you will 
share our anxiety respecting this un- 
fortunate young man, because of his 
mother and sister. 

“Good-bye, dearest! Frank sends 
ever so many loves ; and somebody else 
would send them too, if he thought that 
I would be the bearer. Try to think so 
well of Bullhampton as to make you wish 
to live here. Give my kindest love to 
your aunt Sarah. 

“Your most affectionate friend, 

“Janet Fenwick.” 

Mary was obliged to read the letter 
twice before she completely understood 
it. Old Mr. Trumbull murdered ! Why 
she had known the old man well — had 
always been in the habit of speaking to 
him when she met him either at the 
^one gate- or the other of the farmyard — 
had joked with him about Bone’m, and 
had heard him assert his own perfect 
security against robbers not a week be- 
fore the night on which he was murder- 
ed ! As Mrs. Fenwick had said, the 
truth is so much more real when it 
comes from things that are near. And 
then she had so often heard the cha- 
racter of Sam Brattle described — the 
man who was now in prison as a mur- 
derer ! And she herself had given les- 
sons in singing to Agnes Pope, who was 
now in some sort accused of aiding the 
thieves. And she herself had asked 
Agnes whether it was not foolish for her 
to be hanging about the farmyard, out- 
side her master’s premises, with Sam 
Brattle. It was all brought very near to 
her ! 

Before that day was over she was 
lelling the story to Captain Marrable. 
She had of course told it to her aunt, 
and they had been discussing it the 


whole morning. Mr. Gilmore’s name 
had been mentioned to Captain Marrable, 
but very little more than the name. 
Aunt Sarah, however, had already begun 
to think whether it might not be prudent 
to tell Cousin Walter the story of the 
half-formed engagement. Mary had ex- 
pressed so much sympathy with her 
cousin’s wrongs that Aunt Sarah had 
begun to fear that that sympathy might 
lead to a tenderer feeling, and Aunt 
Sarah was by no means anxious that her 
niece should fall in love with a gentle- 
man whose chief attraction was the fact 
that he had been ruined by his own 
father, even though that gentleman was 
Marrable himself. This danger might 
possibly be lessened if Captain Marrable 
were made acquainted with the Gilmore 
affair, and taught to understand how de- 
sirable such a match would be for Mary. 
But Aunt Sarah had qualms of conscience 
on the subject. She doubted whether 
she had a right to tell the story without 
leave from Mary ; and then there was 
in truth no real engagement. She knew 
indeed that Mr. Gilmore had made the 
offer more than once ; but then she 
knew also that the offer had at any rate 
not as yet been accepted, and she felt 
that on Mr. Gilmore’s account, as well 
as on Mary’s, she ought to hold her 
tongue. It might indeed be admissible 
to tell a cousin that which she would not 
tell to an indifferent young man ; but nev- 
ertheless she could not bring herself to 
do, even with so good an object, that 
which she believed to be wrong. 

That evening Mary was again walking 
on the towing-path beside the river with 
her cousin Walter. She had met him 
now about five times, and there was al- 
ready an intimacy between them. The 
idea of cousinly intimacy to girls is un- 
doubtedly very pleasant ; and I do not 
know whether it is not the fact that the 
better and the purer is the girl the 
sweeter and the pleasanter is the idea. 
In America a girl may form a friendly 
intimacy with any young man she fan- 
cies, and though she may not be free 
from little jests and good-humored jok- 
ing, there is no injury to her from such 
intimacy. It is her acknowledged right 


6o 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


to enjoy herself after that fashion, and 
to have what she calls a good time with 
young men. A dozen such intimacies 
do not stand in her way when there 
comes some real adorer who means to 
marry her and is able to do so. She 
rides with these friends, walks with them 
and corresponds with them. She goes 
out to balls and pic-nics with them, and 
afterward lets herself in with a latch-key, 
while her papa and mamma are abed and 
asleep,' with perfect security. If there 
be much to be said against the practice, 
there is also something to be said for it. 
Girls on the continent of Europe, on 
the other hand, do not dream of making 
friendship with any man. A cousin with 
them is as much out of the question as 
the most perfect stranger. In strict 
families a girl is hardly allowed to go 
out with her brother, and I have heard 
of mothers who thought it indiscreet 
that a father should be seen alone with 
his daughter at a theatre. All friend- 
ships between the sexes must, under 
such a social code, be looked forward to 
as post-nuptial joys. Here in England 
there is a something betwixt the two. 
The intercourse between young men and 
girls is free enough to enable the latter 
to feel how pleasant it is to be able to 
forget for a while conventional restraints, 
and to acknowledge how joyous a thing 
it is to indulge in social intercourse in 
which the simple delight of equal mind 
meeting equal mind in equal talk is just 
enhanced by the unconscious remem- 
brance that boys and girls when they 
meet together may learn to love. There 
is nothing more sweet in youth than 
this, nothing more natural, nothing more 
fitting — nothing, indeed, more essentially 
necessary for God’s purposes with his 
creatures. Neyertheless, here with us, 
that is the restriction, and it is seldom 
that a girl can allow herself the full flow 
of friendship with a man who is not old 
enough to be her father, unless he is her 
lover as well as her friend. But cousin- 
hood does allow some escape from the 
hardship of this rule. Cousins are Tom 
and Jack and George and Dick. Cousins 
probably know all or most of your little 
family secrets. Cousins perhaps have 


romped with you and scolded you and 
teased you when you were young. 
Cousins are almost the same as brothers, 
and yet they may be lovers. There is 
certainly a great relief in cousinhood. 

Mary Lowther had no brother. She 
had neither brother nor sister — had since 
her earliest infancy hardly known any 
other relative save her aunt and old Par- 
son John. When first she had heard 
that Walter Marrable was at Coring, the 
tidings gave her no pleasure whatever. 
It never occurred to her to say to her- 
selj", “Now I shall have one who may 
become my friend, and be to me perhaps 
almost a brother What she had 
hitherto heard of Walter Marrable had 
not been in his favor. Of his father she 
had heard all that was bad, and she had 
joined the father and the son together 
in what few ideas she had formed re- 
specting them. But now, after five in- 
terviews, Walter Marrable was her dear 
cousin, with whom she sympathized, of 
whom she was proud, whose misfortunes 
were in some degree her misfortunes — to 
whom she thought she could very soon 
tell this great trouble of her life about 
Mr. Gilmore, as though he were indeed 
her brother. And she had learned to 
like his dark staring eyes, which now, 
always seemed to be fixed on her with 
something of real regard. She liked 
them the better, perhaps, because there 
was in them so much of real admiration ; 
though if it were so, Mary knew noth- 
ing of such liking herself. And now at 
his bidding she called him Walter. He 
had addressed her by her Christian name 
at first as a matter of course, and she 
had felt grateful to him for doing so. 
But she had not dared to be so bold 
with him till he had bade her do so, and 
now she felt that he was a cousin indeed. 
Captain Marrable was at present waiting, 
not with much patience, for tidings from 
Block & Curling. Would that five thou- 
sand pounds -be saved for him, or must 
he again go out to India and be heard of 
no more at home in his own England ? 
Mary was not so impatient as the cap- 
tain, but she also, was intensely interest- 
ed in the expected letters. On this day, 
however, their conversation chiefly ran 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


6i 


on the news which Mary had that morn- 
ing heard from Bullhampton. 

« I suppose you feel sure,” said the 
captain, “that young Sam Brattle was 
one of the murderers ?’’ 

Oh no, Walter.” 

“ Or at least one of the thieves ?” 

“But both Mr. Fenwick and Mr. 
Gilmore think that he is innocent.” 

“ I do not gather that from what your 
friend says. She says that she thinks 
that they think so. And then it is clear 
that he was hanging about the place be- 
fore with the very men who" have com- 
mitted the crime ; and that was a way 
in which he might have heard, and 
probably had heard, of the money ; and 
then he was out and about that very 
night.” 

“ Still, I can’t believe it. If you knew 
the sort of people his father and mother 
are !” (Captain Marrable could not but 
reflect that, if an honest gentleman might 
have a swindler for his father, an honest 
miller might have a thief for his son.) 
“ And then if you saw the place at which 
they live ! I have a particular interest 
about it.” 

“ Then the young man, of ’course, must 
be innocent.” 

“ Don’t laugh at me, Walter.” 

“ Why is the place so interesting to 
you ?” 

“ I can hardly tell you why. The 
father and the mother are interesting 
people, and so is the sister. And in 
their way they are so good ! And they 
have had great troubles — very great 
troubles. And the place is so cool and 
pretty, all surrounded by streams and old 
pollard willows, with a thatched roof that 
comes in places nearly to the ground ; 
and then the sound of the mill-wheel is 
the pleasantest sound I know anywhere.” 

“ I will hope he is innocent, Mary.” 

“ I do so hope he is innocent ! And 
then my friends are so much interested 
about the family! The Fenwicks are 
very fond of them, and Mr. Gilmore is 
their landlord.” 

“ He is the magistrate ?” 

“Yes, he is the magistrate.” 

“ What sort of fellow is he ?” 

“ A very good sort of fellow — such a 
« 5 


sort that he can hardly be better ; a per- 
fect gentleman.” 

“ Indeed ! And has he a perfect lady 
for his wife ?” 

“ Mr. Gilmore is not married.” 

“ What age is he P’i- 

“ I think he is thirty-three.” 

“ With a nice estate and not married ! 
What a chance you have left behind you, 
Mary !” 

“ Do you think, Walter, that a girl 
ought to wish to marry a man merely 
because he is a perfect 'gentlemen, and 
has a nice estate, and is not yet married ?” 

“ They say that they generally do ; 
don’t they ?” 

“ I hope you don’t think so. Any 
girl would be very fortunate to marry 
Mr. Gilmore if she loved him.” 

“ But you don’t ?” 

“You know I am not talking about 
myself, and you oughtn’t to make per- 
sonal allusions.” 

These cousinly walks along the banks 
of the Lurwell were not probably favor- 
able to Mr. Gilmore’s hopes. 


CHAPTER XV.. 

THE POLICE AT FAULT. 

The magistrates sat at Heytesbury 
on the Tuesday, and Sam Brattle was 
remanded. An attorney had been em- 
ployed on his behalf by Mr. Fenwick. 
The parson on the Monday evening had 
been down at the mill, and had pressed 
strongly on the old miller the necessity 
of getting some legal assistance for his 
son. At first, Mr. Brattle was stern, 
immovable and almost dumb. He sat 
on the bench outside his door, with his 
eyes fixed on the dismantled mill, and 
shook his head wearily, as though sick 
and sore with the words that were being 
addressed to him. Mrs. Brattle the 
while stood in the doorway and listened 
to what was said -without uttering a 
sound. If the parson could not prevail, 
it would be quite out of the question 
that any word of hers should do good. 
There she stood, wiping the tears from 
her eyes, looking on wishfully, while her 
husband did not even knr-w that she 


62 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


was there. At last he rose from his 
seat, and hallooed to her. “ Maggie !” 
said he — “ Maggie !” She stepped for- 
ward and put her hand upon his shoulder. 
« Bring me down the purse, mother,” he 
said. 

“ There will be nothing of that kind 
wanted,” said the parson. 

“ Them gentlemen don’t w’ork for such 
as our boy Tor nothin’,” said the miller. 
« Bring me th.e purse, mother, I say. 
There aren’t much m it, but there’s a 
few guineas as ’ll do fo^That, perhaps. 
As well pitclf^’fefii away that way as any 

'f Mr. Fenwick^of course, declined to 
tjfkje the money. He w^ld^make the 
lawyer understand that fhe would be 
p^^^ly paid for his trouble, and that 
for the Resent would suffice. Only, as 
he explained, it was expedient that he 
should have the father’s authority. 
Should any question on the matter 
arise, it would be better for the young 
man that he should be defended by his 
father’s aid than by that of a stranger. 
“I understand, Mr. Fenwick,” said the 
old man — « I undecirtiffld ; and it’s neigh- 
borly of you. But it’d be better that 
you’d just leave us alone to g(^ out like 
the snuff of a candle.” 

“ Father,” said Fanny, “ I won’t have 
you speak in that way, making out our 
Sam to be guilty before e’er a one else 
has said so.” The miller shook his 
head again, but said nothing further, and 
the parson, having received the desired 
authority, returned to the vicarage. 

The attorney had been employed, and 
Sam had been remanded. There was 
no direct evidence against him, and 
nothing could be done until the other 
men should be taken, for whom they 
were seeking. The police had tracked 
the two men back to a cottage about 
fifteen miles distant from Bullhampton, 
in which lived an old woman who was 
the mother of the Grinder. With Mrs. 
Burrows they found a young woman who 
had lately come to live there, and who 
was said in the neighborhood to be the 
Grinder’s wife. 

But nothing more could be learned 
of the Grinder than that he had been at 


the cottage on the Sunday morning, and 
had gone away according to his wont. 
The old woman swore that he slept there 
the whole of Saturday night, but of 
course the policemen had not believed 
her statement. When does any police- 
man ever believe anything.? Of the 
pofiy and cart the old woman declared 
she knew nothing. Her son had no 
pony and no cart, to her knowing. 
Then she went on to declare that she 
knew very little about her son, who 
never lived with her, and that she had 
only taken in the young woman out of 
charity about two weeks since. The 
mother did not for a moment pretend 
that her son was an honest man, getting 
his bread after an honest fashion. The 
Grinder’s mode of life was too well 
known for even a mother to attempt to 
deny it. But she pretended that she 
was very honest herself, and appealed to 
sundry brandy-balls and stale biscuits in 
her window to prove that she lived after 
a decent, honest, commercial fashion. 

Sam was of course remanded. The 
head constable of the district asked for 
a week more to make fresh inquiry, and 
expressed a very strong opinion that he 
would have the Grinder and his friend 
by the heels before the week should be 
over. The Heytesbury attorney made a 
feeble request that Sam might be re- 
leased on bail, as there was not, accord- 
ing to his statement, “ the remotest 
shadow of a tittle of evidence against 
him.” But poor Sam was sent back to 
jail, and there remained for that week. 
On the next Tuesday the same scene 
was re-enacted. The Grinder had not 
been taken, and a further remand was 
necessary. The face of the head con- 
stable was longer on this occasion than 
it had been before, and his voice less 
confident. The . Grinder, he thought, 
must have caught one of the early Sun- 
day trains and made his way to Birming- 
ham. It had been ascertained that he 
had friends in Birmingham. Another 
remand was asked for a week, with an 
understanding that at the end of the 
week it should be renewed if necessary. 
The policeman seemed to think that by 
that time, unless the Grinder were Ipe- 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


63 


low the sod, his presence above it would 
certainly be proved. On this occasion 
the Heytesbury attorney made a very 
loud demand for Sam’s liberation, talk- 
ing of habeas corpus and the injustice 
of incarceration without evidence of guilt. 
But the magistrate would not let him go. 
“When I’m told that the young man 
was seen hiding in a ditch close to the 
murdered man’s house only a few days 
before the murder, is that no evidence 
against him, Mr. Jones?” said Sir Thom- 
as Charleys of Charlicoats, the Cranmer 
of the bench. 

“ No evidence at all. Sir Thomas. If 
I had been found asleep in the ditch, that 
would have been no evidence against me.” 

“ Yes, it would — very strong evidence ; 
and I would have committed you on it, 
without hesitation, Mr. Jones.” 

Mr. Jones made a spirited rejoinder 
to this, but it was of no use, and poor 
Sam was sent back to his jail for the 
third time. 

For the first ten days after the mur- 
der nothing was done as to the works 
at the mill. The men who had been 
employed by Brattle ceased to come, ap- 
parently of their own account, and every- 
thing was lying there just in the state in 
.which the men had left the place on the 
Saturday night. There was something 
inexpressibly sad in this, as the old man 
could not even make a pretence of going 
into the mill for employment, and there 
was absolutely nothing to which he could 
put his hands, to do it. When ten days 
were over, Gilmore came down to the 
mill and suggested that the works should 
be carried on and finished by him. If 
the mill were not kept at work, the old 
man could not live and no rent would be 
paid. At any rate, it would be better 
that this great sorrow should not be 
allow'ed so to cloud everything as to turn 
industry into idleness, and straitened cir- 
cumstances into absolute beggary. But 
the squire found it very difficult to deal 
with the miller. At first, old Brattle 
would neither give nor withhold his con- 
sent When told by the squire that the 
property could not be left in that way, 
he expressed himself willing to go out 
into the road and lay himself down and 


die there, but not until the term of his 
holding was legally brought to a close. 
“ I don’t know that I owe any rent over 
and beyond this Michaelmas as is com- 
ing, and there’s the hay on the ground 
yet.” Gilmore, who was very patient, 
assured him that he had no wish to allude 
to rent — that there should be no question 
of rent even when the day came, if at 
that time money was scarce with the old 
man. But.would it not be better that 
the mill, at least, should be put in order ? 

“Indeed it, will, squire,” said Mrs. 
Brattle. “ It is the idleness that is kill- 
ing him.” 

“ Hold your jabbering tongue !” said 
the miller, taming round upon her 
fiercely. “Who asked you? I will see 
to it myself, squire, to-morrow or next 
day.” 

After two or three further days of in- 
action at the mill, the squire came again, 
bringing the parson with him ; and they 
did manage to arrange between them 
that the repairs should be at once con- 
tinued. The mill should be completed, 
but the house should be left till next 
summer. As to Brattle himself, when 
he had been once persuaded to yield the 
point, he did not care how much they 
pulled down or how much they built up. 
“ Do it as you will,” he said : “ I ain’t 
nobody now. The women drives me 
about my own house as if I hadn’t 
a’most no business there.” And so the 
hammers and trowels were heard again ; 
and old Brattle would sit perfectly silent, 
gazing at the men as they w'orked. Once, 
as he saw two men and a boy shifting a 
ladder, he turned round with a little 
chuckle to his wife, and said, “ Sam’d ’a 
see’d hisself d — d afore he’d ’a asked 
another chap to help him with such a 
job as that.” 

As Mrs. Brattle told Mrs. Fenwick 'af- 
terward, he had one of his erring children 
in his thoughts morning, noon and night. 
“ When I tell ’un of George” (w'ho was 
the farmer near Fordingbridge), “and of 
Mrs. Jay” (who was the ironmonger’s 
wife at Warminster), “ he won’t take any 
comfort in them,” said Mrs. Brattle. “ I 
don’t think he cares for them, just because 
they can hold their own heads up.” 


64 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


At the end of three weeks the Grinder 
was still missing, and others besides Mr. 
Jones the attorney were beginning to say 
that Sam Brattle should be let out of 
prison. Mr. Fenwick was clearly of 
opinion that he should not be detained 
if bail could be forthcoming. The squire 
was more cautious, and said that it might 
well be that his escape would render it 
impossible for the police ever to get on 
the track of the real murderers. “No 
doubt he knows more than he has told,” 
said Gilmore, “ and will probably tell it 
at last. If he be let out, he will tell 
nothing.” The police were all of opin- 
ion that Sam had been present at the 
murder, and that he should be kept in 
custody till he was tried. They were 
very sharp in their manoeuvres to get 
evidence against him. His boot, they 
had said, fitted a footstep which had 
been found in the mud in the farmyard. 
The measure had been taken on the 
Sunday. That was evidence. Then 
they examined Agnes Pope over and 
over again, and extracted from the poor 
girl an admission that she loved Sam 
better than anything in the whole wide 
world. If he were to be in prison, she 
would not object to go to prison with 
him. If he were to be hung, she would 
wish to be hung with him. She had no 
secret she would not tell him. But, as 
a matter of fact — so she swore over and 
over again — she had never told him a 
word about old Trumbull’s box. She 
did not think she had ever told any one, 
but she would swear on her deathbed 
that she had never told Sam Brattle. 
The head constable declared that he 
had never met a more stubborn or a 
more artful young woman. Sir Thomas 
Charleys was clearly of opinion that no 
bail should be accepted. Another week 
of remand was granted, with the under- 
standing that if nothing of importance 
was elicited by that time, and if neither 
Df the other two suspected men was by 
that time in custody, Sam should be 
allowed to go at large upon bail — a 
good, substantial bail — himself in one 
thousand pounds, and his bailsmen in 
two hundred pounds each. 

“ Who’ll be his bailsmen ?” said the 


squire, coming away with his friend the 
parson from Heytesbury. 

“There will be no difficulty about that, 
I should say.” 

“ But who will they be — his father for 
one ?” 

“ His brother George, and Jay, at 
Warminster, who married his sister,” 
said the parson. 

“ I doubt them both,” said the squire. 

“He sha’n’t want for bail: I’ll be one 
myself, sooner. He shall have bail. ' If 
there’s any difficulty, Jones shall bail 
him ; and I’ll see Jones safe through it. 
He sha’n’t be persecuted in that way.” 

“ I don’t think anybody has attempt- 
ed to persecute him, Frank.” 

“ He will be persecuted if his own 
brothers won’t come forward to help 
him. It isn’t that they have looked 
into the matter and that they think him 
guilty, but that they go just the way 
they’re told to go, like sheep. The 
more I think of it, the more I feel that 
he had nothing to do with the murder.” 

“ I never knew a man change his opin- 
ion so often as you do,” said Gilmore. 

During three weeks the visits made 
by Head Constable Toffy to the cottage 
in which Mrs. Burrows lived were much 
more frequent than was agreeable to that 
lady. This cottage was about four miles 
from Devizes, and on the edge of a com- 
mon about half a mile from the high road 
which leads from that town to Marl- 
borough. There is, or was a year or 
two back, a considerable extent of un- 
enclosed land thereabouts, and on a spot 
called Pycroft 'Common there was a 
small collection of cottages, sufficient to 
constitute a hamlet of the smallest class. 
There was no house there of greater 
pretensions than the very small beershop 
which provided for the conviviality of the 
Pycroftians ; and of other shops there 
were none save a baker’s, the owner of 
which had seldom much bread to sell, 
and the establishment for brandy-balls 
which was kept by Mrs. Burrows. The 
inhabitants were chiefly laboring men, 
some of whom were in summer employ- 
ed in brickmaking ; and there was an 
idea abroad that Pycroft generally was 
not sustained by regular labor and sober 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


industry. Rents, however, were paid for 
the cottages, or the cottagers would have 
been turned adrift ; and Mrs. Burrows 
had lived in hers for five or six years, 
and was noted in the neighborhood for 
her outward neatness and attention to 
decency. In the summer there were 
always half a dozen large sunflowers in 
the patch of ground called a garden, and 
there was a rose tree, and a bush of 
honeysuckle over the door, and an alder 
stump in a corner which would still put 
out leaves and bear berries. When 
Head Constable Toffy visited her, there 
would be generally a feTv high words, 
for Mrs. Burrows was by no means un- 
willing to let it be known that she ob- 
jected to morning calls from Mr. Toffy. 

It has been already said that at this 
time Mrs. Burrows did not live alone. 
Residing with her was a young woman 
who was believed by Mr. Toffy to be 
the wife of Richard Burrows, alias the 
Grinder. On his first visit to Pycroft 
no doubt Mr. Toffy was mainly anxious 
to ascertain whether anything was known 
by the old woman as to her son’s where- 
abouts ; but the second, third and fourth 
visits were made rather to the younger 
than to the older woman. Toffy had 
probably learned in his wide experience 
that a man of the Grinder’s nature will 
generally place more reliance on a young 
woman than on an old ; and that the 
young woman will, nevertheless, be more 
likely to betray confidence than the older 
— partly from indiscretion, and partly, 
alas ! from treachery. But if the pre- 
sumed Mrs. Burrows, Junior, knew aught 
of the Grinder’s present doings, she was 
neither indiscreet nor treacherous. Mr. 
Toffy could get nothing from her. She 
was sickly, weak, sullen and silent. 
“She didn’t think it was her business to 
say where she had been living before she 
came to Pycroft. She hadn’t been liv- 
ing with no husband, and hadn’t got no 
husband, that she know’d of. If she had, 
she wasn’t going to say so. She hadn’t 
any children, and she didn’t know what 
business he had to ask her. She came 
from Lunnun. At any rate, she came 
from there last, and she didn’t know 
what business he had to ask her where 


65 

she came from. What business was it 
of his to be asking what her name was ? 
Her name was Anne Burrows, if he liked 
to call her so. She wouldn’t answer him 
any more questions. No ; she wouldn’t 
say what her name was before she was 
married.” 

Mr. Toffy had his reasons for interro- 
gating this poor woman, but he did not 
for a while let any one know what those 
reasons were. He could not, however, 
obtain more information than what is 
contained in the answers above given, 
which were, for the most part, true. 
Neither the mother nor the younger wo- 
man knew where was to be found, at the 
present moment, that hero of adventure 
who was called the Grinder, and all the 
police of Wiltshire began to fear that 
they were about to be outwitted. 

“ You never were at Bullhampton with 
your husband, I suppose ?” asked Mr. 
Toffy. 

“ Never,” said the Grinder’s wife ; 
“but what does it matter to you where 
I was ?” 

“ Don’t answer him never another 
word,” said Mrs. Burrows. 

“ I won’t,” said the Grinder’s wife. 

“Were you ever at Bullhampton a 
all?” asked Mr. Toffy. 

“Oh dear! oh dear!” said the younger 
woman. 

“ I think you must have been there 
once,” said Mr. Toffy. 

“ What business is it of your’n ?” de- 
manded Mrs. Burrows, Senior. “ Drat 
you I get out of this ! You ain’t no 
right here, and you sha’n’t stay here. If 
you ain’t out of this. I’ll brain yer. I 
don’t care for perlice nor anything. W"e 
ain’t done nothing. If he did smash the 
gen’leman’s head, we didn’t do it — neither 
she nor me.” 

“All the same I think that Mrs. 
Burrows has been at Bullhampton,” said 
the policeman. 

Not another word after this was said 
by Mrs. Burrows, Junior, and Constable 
Toffy soon took his departure. He was 
convinced, at any rate, of this : that 
wherever the murderers might be — the 
man or men who had joined Sam Brattle 
in the murder, for of Sam’s guilt he was 


66 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


quite convinced — neither the mother nor 
the so-called wife knew of their where- 
abouts. He, in his heart, condemned 
the constabulary of Warwickshire, of 
Gloucestershire, of Worcestershire and 
of Somersetshire because the Grinder 
was not taken. Especially he condemn- 
ed the constabulary of Warwickshire, 
feeling almost sure that the Grinder was 
in Birmingham. If the constabulary in 
those counties would only do their duty 
as they in Wiltshire did theirs, the 
Grinder and his associates would soon 
be taken. But by him nothing further 
could be learned, and Mr. Toffy left 
Pycroft Common with a heavy heart. 

“ D and b-^ — ’im !” said the old 

woman, as soon as he was gone. 

“ Ah me ! I wish that they would kill 
me,” said the young one. 

“ That he should have risked hisself 
coming all the way here to see such a 
lily-livered thing as thou art ! And it 
warn’t he as did it.” 

“Who says it was ?” asked the young 
woman. 

“ I knows who did it,” said the old 
one. 

“ So do I,” said the younger. 

“It was Sam,” said the elder. 

“You lie !” said the younger woman, 
getting up. “You know you lie. Sam 
never did it. You lie! you lie! you lie!” 


CHAPTER XVI. 

MISS LOWTHER ASKS FOR ADVICE. 

All these searchings for the murder- 
ers of Mr. Trumbull, and these remand- 
ings of Sam Brattle, took place in the 
month of September, and during that 
same month the energy of other men of 
law was very keenly at work on a widely 
different subject. Could Messrs. Block 
& Curling assure Captain Marrable that 
a portion of his inheritance would be 
saved for him, or had that graceless 
father of his in very truth seized upon 
It all ? There was no shadow of doubt 
but that if aught was spared, it had not 
been spared through any delicacy on the 
part of the colonel. The colonel had 
gone to work paying creditors who were 


clamorous against him the moment 
had got his hand upon the money, and 
had gone to work also gambling, and 
had made assignments of money, and 
done his very best to spend the whole. 
But there was a question whether a cer- 
tain sum of five thousand pounds, which 
seemed to have got into the hands of a 
certain lady, who protested that she 
wanted it very badly, might not be saved. 
Messrs. Block & Curling thought that it 
might, but were by no means certain. It 
probably might be done if the captain 
would consent to bring the matter before 
a jury ; in wlrrch case the whole story 
of the father’s iniquity must, of course, 
be proved. Or it might be that by 
threatening to do this the lady’s friends 
would relax their grasp on receiving a 
certain present out of the money. “ We 
would offer them fifty pounds, and per- 
haps they would take five hundred,” said 
Messrs. Block & Curling. 

All this irritated the captain. He was 
intensely averse to any law proceedings 
by which the story should be made pub- 
lic. “I won’t pretend that it is on my 
father’s account,” said he to his uncle. 
Parson John shrugged his shoulders and 
shook his head, meaning to imply that it 
certainly was a bad case, but that as 
Colonel Marrable was a Marrable, be 
ought to be spared if possible. “It is 
on my own account,” continued the cap- 
tain, “ and partly, perhaps, on that of the 
family. I would endure anything rather 
than have the *filth of the transaction 
flooded through the newspapers. I 
should never be able to join my mess 
again if I did that.” 

“ Then you’d better let Block & Curl- 
ing compromise and get what they can,” 
said Parson John, with an indifferent and 
provoking tone, which clearly indicated 
that he would regard the matter when so 
settled as one arranged amicably and 
pleasantly between all the parties. His 
uncle’s calmness and absence of horror 
at the thing that had been done was very 
grievous to Captain Marrable. 

“ Poor Wat !” the parson had once 
said, speaking of his wicked brother : 
“he never could keep two shillings to- 
gether. It’s ever so long since I had to 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAAtPTON. 


67 


determine that nothing on earth should 
induce me to let him have half a crown. 
I must say that he did not take it amiss 
when I told him.” 

“ Why should he have wanted half a 
crown from you ?” 

“ He was always one of those thirsty 
sandbags that swallow small drops and 
large alike. He got ten thousand 
pounds out of poor Gregory about the 
time that you were born, and Gregory is 
fretting about it yet.” 

« What kills me is the disgrace of the 
connection,” said the young man. 

“It would be disagreeable to have it 
in the newspapers,” said Parson John. 
“ And then he was such a pleasant fel- 
low, and so handsome ! I always en- 
joyed his society when once I had but- 
toned up my breeches pocket.” 

Yet this man was a clergyman, preach- 
ing honesty and moral conduct, and living 
fairly well up to his preaching, too, as 
far as he himself was concerned ! The 
captain almost thought that the earth 
and skies should be brought together, 
and the clouds clap with thunder, and 
the mountains be riven in twain, at the 
very mention of his father’s wickedness. 
But then sins committed against one’s 
self are so much more sinful than any 
other sins ! 

The captain had much more sympa- 
thetic listeners in Uphill Lane ; not that 
either of the ladies there spoke severely 
against his father, but that they entered 
more cordially into his own distresses. 
If he could save even four thousand five 
hundred pounds out of the wreck, the 
interest on the money would enable him 
to live at home in his regiment. If he 
could get four thousand pounds, he would 
do it. “With one hundred and fifty 
pounds per annum,” he said, “ I could 
just hold my head up and get along. I 
should have to give up all manner of 
things, but I would never cry about that.” 
Then, again, he would declare that the 
one thing necessary for his happiness 
was that he should get the whole busi- 
ness of the money off his mind. “ If I 
CO jld have it settled and have done with 
it, ' said he, “ I should be at ease.” 

“ Quite right, my dear,” said the old 


lady. “ My idea about money is this, 
that whether you have much or little, 
you should make your arrangements so 
that it is no matter of thought to you. 
Your money should be just like counters 
at a round game with children, and should 
mean nothing. It comes to that when 
you once get things on a proper footing.’^ 

They thus became very intimate, the 
two ladies in Uphill Lane and the cap- 
tain from his'* uncle’s parsonage in the 
Lowtown ; and the intimacy on his part 
was quite as strong with the younger as 
with the elder relative — quite as strong, 
and no doubt more pleasant. They 
walked together constantly, as cousins 
may walk, and they knew every turn that 
took place in the correspondence with 
Messrs. Block & Curling. Captain Mar- 
rable had come to his uncle’s house for 
a week or ten days, but had been press- 
ed to remain on till this business should 
be concluded. His leave of absence 
lasted till the end of November, and 
might be prolonged if he intended to 
return to India. “Stay here till the 
end of November,” said Parson John. 
“What’s the use of spending your money 
at a London hotel. Only don’t fall in 
love with Cousin Mary.” So the cap- 
tain did stay, obeying one half of his 
uncle’s advice, and promising obedience 
to the other half 

Aunt Sarah also had her fears about 
the falling in love, and spoke a prudent 
word to Mary. 

“ Mary dear,” she said, “ you and 
Walter are as loving as turtle doves.” 

“ I do like him so much,” said Mary, 
boldly. 

“ So do I, my dear. He is a gentle- 
. man and clever, and, upon the whole, he 
bears a great injury well. I like him. 
But I have a reason why I sha’n’t fall 
in love with him.” 

“ What is your reason .^” said Mary, 
laughing. 

“ I don’t think people ought to fall in 
love when there is a strong reason 
against it.” 

“ Certainly not, if they can help it.” 

“ Psha ! That’s missish nonsense, 
Mary, and you know it. If a girl were 
to tell me she fell in love because she 


68 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


couldn’t help it, I should tell her that 
she wasn’t worth any man’s love.” 

“ But what’s your reason, Aunt Sarah ?” 

“ Because it wouldn’t suit Walter ; and 
your reason should be that it wouldn’t 
suit Mr. Gilmore.” 

I am not bound to suit Mr. Gilmore.” 

“ I don’t know about that. And then, 
too, it would not suit Walter himself. 
How, could he marry a wife when he has 
just been robbed of all his fortune ?” 

“ But I have not the slightest idea 
of falling in love with him. In spite of 
what I said, I do hope that I can help 
it. And then I feel to him just as 
though he were my brother. I’ve got 
almost to know what it would be to have 
a brother.” 

In this Miss Lowther was probably 
wrong. She had now known her cousin 
for just a month. A month is quite long 
enough to realize the pleasure of a new 
lover, but it may be doubted whether 
the intimacy of a brother does not take a 
very much longer period for its creation. 

“ I think, if I were you,” said Miss 
Marrable, after a pause, “ that I would 
tell him about Mr. Gilmore.” 

“ Would you. Aunt Sarah ?” 

“I think I would. If he were really 
your brother, you would tell him.” 

It was probably the case that when 
Miss Marrable gave this advice her 
opinion of Mr. Gilmore’s success was 
greater than the circumstances warrant- 
ed. Though there had been much said 
between the aunt and her niece about 
Mr. Gilmohe and his offers, Mary had 
never been able quite to explain her Own 
thoughts and feelings. She herself did 
not believe that she could be brought to 
accept him, and was now stronger in 
that opinion than ever. But were she 
to say so in language that would con- 
vince her aunt, her aunt would no doubt 
ask her. Why then had she left the man 
in doubt? Though she knew that at 
every moment in which she had been 
called upon to act she had struggled to 
do right, yet there hung over her a half 
conviction that she had been weak and 
almost selfish. Her dearest friends 
wrote to her and spoke to her as though 
she would certainly take Mr. Gilmore at 


last. Janet Fenwick wrote of it in her 
letters as of a thing almost fixed ; and 
Aunt Sarah certainly lived as though she 
expected it ; and yet Mary was very 
nearly sure that it could not be so. 
Would it not be better that she should 
write to Mr. Gilmore at once, and not 
wait till the expiration of the weary six 
months which he had specified as the 
time at the end of which he would re- 
new his proposals ? Had Aunt Sarah 
known all this — had she been aware how 
very near Mary was to the writing of 
such a letter — she would not probably 
have suggested that her niece should tell 
her cousin anything about Mr. Gilmore. 
She did think that the telling of the tale 
would make Cousin Walter understand 
that he should not allow himself to be- 
come an interloper ; but the tale, if told 
as Mary would tell it, might have a very 
different effect. 

Nevertheless, Mary thought that she 
would tell it. It would be so nice to 
consult a brother ! It would be so 
pleasant to discuss the matter with some 
one that would sympathize with her — 
with some one who would not wish to 
drive her into Mr. Gilmore’s arms simply 
because Mr. Gilmore was an excellent 
gentleman with a snug property ! Even 
from Janet Fenwick, whom she loved 
dearly, she had never succeeded in 
getting the sort of sympathy that she 
wanted. Janet was the best friend in 
the world — was actuated in this matter 
simply by a desire to do a good turn to 
two people whom she loved — but there 
was no sympathy between her and Mary 
in the matter. 

“Marry him,” said Janet, “and you 
will adore him afterward.” 

“ I want to adore him first,” said 
Mary. 

So she resolved that she would te. 
Walter Marrable what was her position. 
They were again down on the banks of 
the Lurwell, sitting together on the slope 
which had been made to support some 
hundred yards of a canal, where the 
river itself rippled down a slightly rapid 
fall. They were seated between the 
canal and the river, with their feet to- 
ward the latter, and Walter Marrable 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


69 


was just lighting a ci^ar. It was very 
easy to bring the conversation round to 
the affairs of Bullhampton, as Sam was 
still in prison, and Janet’s letters were 
full of the mystery with which the mur- 
der of Mr. Trumbull was shrouded. 

« By the by,” said she, “ I have some- 
thing to tell you about Mr. Gilmore.” 

“ Tell away,” said he, as he turned 
the cigar round in his mouth to com- 
plete the lighting of the edges in the 
wind. 

“Ah, but I sha’n’t, unless you will 
interest yourself. What I am going to 
tell you ought to interest you.” 

“ He has made you a proposal of 
marriage ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ I knew it. 

“ How could you know it ? Nobody 
has told you.” 

“ I felt sure of it from the way in 
which you speak of him. But I thought 
also that you had refused him. Perhaps 
I was wrong there.” 

“ No.” 

“ You have refused him ?” 

“Yes.” • 

“ I doni’t see that there is very much 
story to be told, Mary.” 

“ Don’t be so unkind, Walter. There 
is a story, and one that troubles me. 
If it were not so, I should not have pro- 
posed to tell you. I thought that you 
would give me advice and tell me what 
I ought to do.” 

“ But if you have refused him you 
have done so — no doubt, rightly — with- 
out my advice ; and I am too late in the 
field to be of any service.” 

“You must let me tell my own story, 
and you must be good to me while I do 
so. I think I shouldn’t tell you if I 
hadn’t almost made up my mind ; but I 
sha’n’t tell you which way, and you must 
advise me. In the first place, though 
I did refuse him, the matter is still open, 
and he is to ask me again if he pleases.” 

“ He has your permission for that ?” 

“ Well — yes. I hope it wasn’t wrong. 
I did so try to be right.” 

“ I do not say you were wrong.” 

“ I like him so much, and think him 
so good, and do really feel that his affec- 


tion is so great an honor to me, that I 
could not answer him as though I were 
quite indifferent to him.” 

“ At any rate, he is to come again ?” 

“If he pleases.” 

“ Does he really love you ?” 

“ How am I to say ? But that is 
missish and untrue. I am sure he loves 
me.” 

“ So that he will grieve to lose you ?” 

“ I know he will grieve — I shouldn’t 
say so. But I know he will.” 

“You ought to tell the truth, as you 
believe it. And you yourself— do you 
love him ?” 

“ I don’t know. I do love him, but 
if I heard he was going to marry another 
girl to-morrow, it would make me very 
happy.” 

“ Then you can’t love him.” 

“ I feel as though I should think the 
same of any man who wanted to marry 
me. But let me go^on with my story. 
Everybody I care for wishes me to take 
him. I know that Aunt Sarah feels quite 
sure that I shall at last, and that she 
thinks I ought to do so at once. My 
friend, Janet Fenwick, cannot understand 
why I should hesitate, and only forgives 
me because she is sure that it will come 
right, in her way, some day. Mr. Fen- 
wick is just the same, and will always 
talk to me as though it were my fate to 
live at Bullhampton all my life.” 

“Is not Bullhampton a nice place ?” 

“Very nice : I love the place.” 

“And Mr. Gilmore is rich ?” 

“He is quite rich enough. Fancy 
my inquiring about that, with just twelve 
hundred pounds for my fortune !” 

“ Then why, in God’s name, don’t you 
accept him ?” 

“You think I ought?” 

“Answer my question — why do you 
not ?” 

“ Because — I do not love him — as I 
should hope to love my husband.” 

After this Captain Marrable, who had 
been looking her full in the face while 
he had been asking these questions, 
turned somewhat away from her, as 
though the conversation were over. She 
remained motionless, and was minded so 
to remain till he shouM tell her that it 


70 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


was time to move that they might re- 
turn home. He had given her no ad- 
vice, but she presumed she was to take 
what had passed as the expression of his 
opinion that it was her duty to accept an 
offer so favorable and so satisfactory to 
the family. At any rate, she would say 
nothing more on the subject till he should 
address her. Though she loved him 
dearly as her cousin, yet she was in some 
slight degree afraid of him. And. now 
she was not sure but that he was ex- 
pressing toward her, by his anger, some 
amount of displeasure at her weakness 
and inconsistency. After a while he 
turned round suddenly and took her by 
the hand. 

“ Well, Mary !” he said. 

« Well, Walter !” 

What do you mean to do, after all 

« What ought I to do ?” 

« What ought you to do 1 You know 
what you ought to do. Would you marry 
a man for whom you have no more re- 
gard than you have for this stick, simply 
because he is persistent in asking you ? 
No more than you have for this stick, 
Mary. What sort of a feeling must it 
be when you say that you would willing- 
ly see him married to any other girl to- 
morrow ? Can that be love 

“ I have never loved any one better.” 

« And never will ?” 

« How can I say? It seems to me 
that I haven’t got the feeling that other 
girls have. I want some one to love 
me — I do. I own that. I want to be 
first with some one, but I have never 
found the one yet that I cared for.” 

“You had better wait till you find 
him,” said he, raising himself up on his 
arm. “ Come, let us get up and go 
home. You have asked me for my ad- 
vice and I have given it you. Do not 
throw yourself away upon a man because 
other people ask you, and because you 
think you might as well oblige them and 
oblige him. If you do, you will soon 
live to repent it. What would you do 
if, after marrying this man, you found 
there was some one you could love ?” 

“ I do not think it would come to 
that, Walter.” 

“ How can you tell ? How can you 


prevent its coming to that, except by 
loving the man you do marry? You 
don’t care two straws for Mr. Gilmore, 
and I cannot understand how you can 
have the courage to think of becoming 
his wife. Let us go home. You have 
asked my advice, and you’ve got it. If 
you do not take it, I will endeavor to 
forget that I gave it you.” 

Of course she would take it. She did 
not tell him so then, but of course he 
should guide her. With how much more 
accuracy, with how much more delicacy 
of feeling, had he understood her po- 
sition than had her other friends ! He 
had sympathized with her at a word. 
He spoke to her sternly, severely, almost 
cruelly. But it was thus that she had 
longed to be spoken to by some one 
who would care enough for her, would 
take sufficient interest in her, to be at 
the trouble so to advise her. She would 
trust him as a brother, and his words 
should be sweet to her were they ever 
so severe. 

They walked together home in silence, 
and his very manner was stern to her, 
but it might be just thus that a loving 
brother would carry himself who had 
counseled his sister wisely, and had not 
as yet been assured that his counsel 
would be taken. 

“Walter,” she said, as they neared 
the town, “I hope you have no doubt 
about it ?” 

“ Doubt about what, Mary ?” 

“It is quite a matter of course that I 
shall do as you tell me.” 


CHAPTER XVII. 

THE MARQUIS OF TROWBRIDGE. 

By the end of September it had come 
to be pretty well understood that Sam 
Brattle must be allowed to go out of 
prison unless something in the shape of 
fresh evidence should be brought up on 
the next Tuesday. There had arisen a 
very strong feeling in the county on the 
subject — a Brattle feeling and an anti- 
Brattle feeling. It might have been 
called a Bullhampton feeling and an 
anti-Bullhampton feeling, were it not 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


71 


that the biggest man concerned in Bull- 
hampton, with certain of his hangers-on 
and dependants, were very clearly of 
opinion that Sam Brattle had committed 
the murder, and that he should be kept 
in prison till the period for hanging him 
might come round. This very big per- 
son was the Marquis of Trowbridge, 
under whom poor Farmer Trumbull had 
held his land, and who now seemed to 
think that a murder committed on one 
of his tenants was almost as bad as in- 
sult to himself. He felt personally angry 
with Bullhampton, had ideas of stopping 
his charities to the parish, and did re- 
solve, then and there, that he would have 
nothing to do with a subscription in the 
repair of the church, at any rate for the 
next three years. In making up his 
mind on which subject he was, perhaps, 
a little influenced by the opinions and 
narratives of Mr. Puddleham, the Metho- 
dist minister in the village. 

It was not only that Mr. Trumbull 
had been murdered. So great and wise 
a man as Lord Trowbridge would no 
doubt know very well that in a free 
country, such as England, a man could 
not be specially protected from the hands 
of murderers or others by the fact of his 
being the tenant or dependant — by his 
being, in some sort, the possessed — of a 
great nobleman. The marquis’ people 
were all expected to vote for his candi- 
dates, and would soon have ceased to be 
the marquis’ people had they failed to do 
so. They were constrained also, in many 
respects, by the terms of their very short 
leases. They could not kill a head of 
game on their farms. They could not 
sell their own hay off the land, nor in- 
deed any produce other than their corn 
or cattle. They were compelled to crop 
their land in certain rotation, and could 
take no other lands than those'held un- 
der the marquis without his leave. In 
return for all this they became the mar- 
quis’ people. Each tenant shook hands 
with the marquis perhaps once in three 
years ; and twice a year w’as allowed to 
get drunk at the marquis’ expense — if 
such was his taste — provided that he had 
paid his rent. If the duties were heavy, 
the privileges were great. So the mar- 


quis felt himself ; and he knew that a 
mantle of security, of a certain thickness, 
was spread upon the shoulders of each 
of his people by reason of the tenure 
which bound them together. But he did 
not conceive that this mantle would be 
proof against the bullet of the ordinary 
assassin or the hammer of the outside 
rufiian. But here the case was very 
different. The hammer had been the 
hammer of no outside rufiian. To the 
best of his lordship’s belief — and in that 
belief he was supported by the constab- 
ulary of the whole county — the hammer 
had been wielded by a man of Bullhamp- 
ton — had been wielded against his tenant 
by the son of “ a person who holds land 
under a gentleman who has some pro- 
perty in the parish.” It was thus the 
marquis was accustomed to speak of his 
neighbor, Mr. Gilmore, who, in the mar- 
quis’ eyes^ was a man not big enough to 
have his tenants called his people. That 
such a man as Sam Brattle should have 
murdered such a one as Mr. Trumbull 
was, to the marquis, an insult rather than 
an injury ; and now it was to be en- 
hanced by the release of the man from 
prison, and that by order of a bench of 
magistrates on which Mr. Gilmore sat ! 

And there w^ more in it even than 
all this. It was very well known at 
Turnover Park — the seat of Lord Trow- 
bridge, near Westbury — that Mr. Gil- 
more, the gentleman who held property 
in his lordship’s parish of Bullhampton, 
and Mr. Fenwick, who vyas vicar of the 
same, were another Damon and Pythias. 
Now the ladies at Turnover, who were 
much devoted to the Low Church, had 
heard, and doubtless believed, that our 
friend Mr. Fenwick was little better than 
an infidel. When first he had come into 
the county they had been very anxious 
to make him out to be a High Church- 
man, and one or two stories about a 
cross and a candlestick were fabricated 
for their gratification. There was at that 
time the remnant of a great fight going 
on between the Trowbridge people and 
another great family in the neighborhood 
on this subject; and it ^ould have suit- 
ed the Ladies Stowte — John Augustus 
Stowte was the Marquis of Trowbridge — 


72 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


to have enlisted our parson among their 
enemies of this class ; but the accusation 
fell so plump to the ground, was so im- 
possible of support, that they were 
obliged to content themselves with 
knowing that Mr. Fenwick was — an 
infidel ! To do the marquis justice, we 
must declare that he would not have 
troubled himself on this score if Mr. 
Fenwick would have submitted himself 
to become one of his pupils. The mar- 
quis was master at home, and the Ladies 
Sophie and Caroline would have been 
proud to entertain Mr. Fenwick by the 
week together at Turnover had he been 
willing, infidel or believer, to join that 
faction. But he never joined that fac- 
tion, but only was the bosom friend of 
the “ gentleman who owned some land 
in the parish but he was twice more 
rebellious than that gentleman himself. 
He had contradicted the marquis flat to 
his face — so the marquis said himself — 
when they met once about some busi- 
ness in the parish ; and again, when, in 
the vicar’s early days in Bullhampton, 
some gathering for school-festival pur- 
poses was made in the great home-field 
behind Farmer Trumbull’s house, Mrs. 
Fenwick misbehaved herself egregiously. 

“ Upon my word, she^patronized us !” 
said Lady Sophie, laughing. “ She did, 
indeed ! And you know what she was. 
Her father was first a common builder 
at Loring, who made some money by a 
speculation in bricks and mortar.” 

When Lady Sophie said this she was 
no doubt ignorant of the fact that Mr. 
Balfour had been the younger son of a 
family much more ancient than her own, 
that he had taken a double first at Ox- 
ford, had been a member of half the 
learned societies in Europe, and had be- 
longed to two or three of the best clubs 
in London. 

From all this it will be seen that the 
Marquis of Trowbridge would be dis- 
posed to think ill of whatever might be 
done in regard to the murder by the 
Gilmore-Fenwick party in the parish. 
And' then there were tales about, in 
which there wa^ perhaps some founda- 
tion, that the vicar and the murderer had 
been very dear friends. It was certainly 


believed at Turnover thac the vicar and 
Sam Brattle had for years past spent tlie 
best part of their Sundays fishing to- 
gether. There were tales of rat-killing 
matches m which they had been en- 
gaged, originating in the undeniable fact 
of a certain campaign against rats at the 
mill, in which the vicar had taken an 
ardent part. Undoubtedly the destruc- 
tion of vermin — and, in regard to one 
species, its preservation for the sake of 
destruction — and the catching of fish, 
and the shooting of birds, were things 
lovely in the vicar’s eyes. He perhaps 
did let his pastoral dignity go a little by 
the board when he and Sam stooped to- 
gether, each with a ferret in his hand, 
groveling in the dust to get at certain 
rat-advantages in the mill. Gilmore, 
who had seen it, had told him of this. 

“ I understand it all, old fellow,” Fen- 
wick had said to his friend, “ and know 
very well I have got to choose between 
two things. I must be called a hypo- 
crite, or else I must be one. I have no 
doubt that as years go on with me I 
shall see the advantage of choosing the 
latter.” 

There were at that time frequent dis- 
cussions between them on the same sub- 
ject, for they were friends who could 
dare to discuss each other’s modes of 
life, but the reader need not be troubled 
further now with this digression. The 
position which the vicar held in the es- 
timation of the Marquis of Trowbridge 
will probably be sufficiently well under- 
stood. 

The family at Turnover Park would 
have thought it a great blessing to have 
had a clergyman at Bullhampton with 
whom they could have cordially co- 
operated; but, failing this, they had 
taken Mr. Puddleham, the Methodist 
minister, to their arms. From Mr. Pud- 
dleham they learned parish facts and 
parish fables which would never have 
reached them but for his assistance. 
Mr. Fenwick was well aware of this, and 
used to declare that he had no objection 
to it. He would protest that he could 
not see why Mr. Puddleham should not 
get along in the parish just as w^ll as 
himself, he having, and meaning to keep 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


to himself, the slight advantages of the 
parish church, the vicarage-house and 
the small tithes. Of this he was quite 
sure, that Mr. Puddleham’s religious 
teaching was a great deal better than 
none at all ; and he was by no means 
convinced — so he said — that for some 
of his parishioners Mr. Puddleham was 
not a better teacher than he himself. 
He always shook hands with Mr. Pud- 
dleham, though Mr.. Puddleham would 
never look him in the face, and was quite 
determined that Mr. Puddleham should 
not be a thorn in his side. 

In this matter of Sam Brattle’s im- 
prisonment, and now intended liberation, 
tidings from the parish were doubtless 
conveyed by Mr. Puddleham to Turnover 
— probably not direct, but still in such a 
manner that the great people at Turnover 
knew to whom they were indebted. Now 
Mr. Gilmore had certainly, from the first, 
been by no means disposed to view fa- 
vorably the circumstances attaching to 
Sam Brattle on that Saturday night. 
When the great blow fell on the Brattle 
family, his demeanor altered toward them, 
and he forgave the miller’s contumacy ; 
but he had always thought that Sam had 
been guilty. The parson had from the 
first regarded the question with great 
doubt, but nevertheless his opinion, too, 
had at first been adverse to Sam. Even 
now, when he was so resolute that Sam 
should be released, he founded his de- 
mand, not on Sam’s innocence, but on 
the absence of any evidence against him. 

“ He’s entitled to fair play, Harry,” 
he would say to Gilmore, “ and he is not 
getting it, because there is a prejudice 
agaiiist him. You hear what that old 
ass. Sir Thomas, says.” 

« Sir Thomas is a very good magis- 
trate.” 

“ If he don’t take care, he’ll find him- 
self in trouble for keeping the lad locked 
up without authority. Is there a jury- 
man in the country would find him guilty 
because he was lying in the old man’s 
ditch a week before ?” ' 

In this way Gilmore also became a 
favorer of Sam’s claim to be released ; 
and at last it came to be understood 
that on the next Tuesday he would be 


73 

released unless further evidence should 
be forthcoming. 

And then it came to pass that a cer- 
tain very remarkable meeting took place 
in the parish. Word was brought to 
Mr. Gilmore on Monday, the 5th of 
October, that the Marquis of Trow- 
bridge was to be at the Church Farm — 
poor Trumbull’s farm — on that day at 
noon, and that his lordship thought that 
it might be expedient that he and Mr. 
Gilmore should meet on the occasion. 
There was no note, but the message was 
brought by a sub-agent, one of the mar- 
quis’ people, with whom Mr. Gilmore 
was very well acquainted. 

“ I’ll walk down about that time, 
Packer,” said Mr. Gilmore, “and shall 
be very happy to see his lordship.” 

Now the marquis never sat as a 
magistrate at the Heytesbury bench, 
and had not been present on any of the 
occasions on which Sam had been ex- 
amined ; nor had Mr. Gilmore seen the 
marquis since the murder ; nor, for the 
matter of that, for the last twelve months. 
Mr. Gilmore had just finished breakfast 
when the news was brought to him, and 
he thought he might as well walk down 
and see Fenwick first. His interview 
with the parson ended in a promise that 
he, Fenwick, would also look in at the 
farm. 

At twelve o’clock the marquis was 
seated in the old farmer’s arm-chair in 
the old farmer’s parlor. The house was 
dark and gloomy, never having been 
above a quarter opened since the mur- 
der. With the marquis was Packer, 
who was standing, and the marquis was 
pretending to cast his eyes over one or 
two books which, had been brought to 
him. He had been taken all over the 
house ; had stood looking at the bed 
where the old man lay when he was 
attacked, as though he might possibly 
discover, if he looked long enough, 
something that w'ould reveal the truth ; 
had gazed awestruck at the spot on 
which the body had been found, and 
had taken occasion to remark to himself 
that the house was a good deal out of 
order. The marquis was a man nearer 
seventy than sixty, but very hale and 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


lA 

with few signs of age. He was short 
and plump, with hardly any beard on his 
face, and short gray hair, of which noth- 
ing could be seen when he wore his hat. 
His countenance would not have been 
bad, had not the weight of his marquisate 
always been there ; nor would his heart 
have been bad, had it not been similarly 
burdened. But he was a silly, weak, 
ignorant man, whose own capacity would 
hardly have procured bread for him in 
any trade or profession, had bread not 
been so adequately provided for him^ by 
his fathers before him. 

« Mr. Gilmore said he would be here 
at twelve. Packer?” 

“ Yes, my lord.” 

“And it’s past twelve now ?” 

“ One minute, my lord.” 

Then the peer looked again at poor 
old Trumbull’s books : “ I shall not 
wait. Packer.” 

“ No, my lord.” 

“You had better tell them to put the 
horses to.” 

“Yes, my lord.” But just as Packer 
went out into the passage for the pur- 
pose of giving the order, he met Mr. 
Gilmore, and ushered him into the 

»-oom. 

“ Ha ! Mr. Gilmore — yes, I am very 
glad to see you, Mr. Gilmore and the 
marquis came forward to shake hands 
with his visitor. “ I thought it better 
that you and I should meet about this 
sad affair in the parish — a very sad affair, 
indeed.” ^ 

“It certainly is. Lord Trowbridge ; 
and the mystery makes it more so.” 

“ I suppose there is no real mystery, 
Mr. Gilmore. I suppose there can be 
no doubt that that unfortunate young 
man did — did — did bear a hand in it at 
least?” 

“ I think that there is very much 
doubt, my lord.” 

“ Do you, indeed ? I think there is 
none — not the least. And all the police 
force are of the same opinion. I have 
considerable experience of my own in 
these matters ; but I should not venture, 
perhaps, to express my opinion so con- 
fidently if I were not backed by the 
police. You are aware, Mr. Gilmore, 


that the police are — very — seldom 
wrong ?” 

“ I should be tempted to say that they 
are very seldom right, except when the 
circumstances are all under their noses.” 

“ I must say I differ from you entirely, 
Mr. Gilmore. Now, in this case — ” 
The marquis was here interrupted by a 
knock at the door, and before the sum- 
mons could be answered the parson en- 
tered the room. And with the parson 
came Mr. Puddleham. The marquis had 
thought that the parson might perhaps 
intrude, and Mr. Puddleham was in wait- 
ing as a make-weight, should he be want- 
ing. When Mr. Fenwick had met the 
minister hanging about the farmyard, he 
had displayed not the slightest, anger. 
If Mr. Puddleham chose to come in also, 
and make good his doing so before the 
marquis, it was nothing to Mr. Fenwick. 
The great man looked up as though he 
were very much startled and somewhat 
offended, but he did at last condescend 
to shake hands, first with one clergyman 
and then with the other, and to ask them 
to sit down. He explained that he had 
come over to make some personal in- 
quiry into the melancholy matter, and 
then proceeded with his opinion respect- 
ing Sam Brattle. “From all that I can 
hear and see,” said his lordship, “ I fear 
there can be no doubt that this murder 
has been due to the malignity of a near 
neighbor.” 

“ Do you mean the poor boy that is 
.-in prison, my lord ?” asked the parson. 

“Of course I do, Mr. Fenwick. The 
constabulary are of opinion — ” 

“We know that, Lord Trowbridge.” 

“Perhaps, Mr. Fenwick, you will al- 
low me to express my own ideas. The 
constabulary, I say, are of opinion that 
there is no manner of doubt that he was 
one of those who broke into my tenant’s 
house on that fatal night ; and, as I was 
explaining to Mr. Gilmore when you did 
us the honor to join us, in the course of 
a very long provincial experience I have 
seldom known the police to be in error.” 

“ Why, Lord Trowbridge — !” 

“If you please, Mr. Fenwick, I will 
go on. My time here cannot be long, 
and I have a proposition which I am de- 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


75 


sirous of making to Mr. Gilmore as a 
magistrate acting in this part of the 
county. Of course it is not for me to 
animadvert upon what the magistrates 
may do at the bench to-nlorrow.” 

“ I am very sure your lordship would 
make no such animadversion,” said Mr. 
Gilmore. 

“ I do not intend it, for many reasons. 
But I may go so far as to say that a de- 
mand for the young man’s release will 
be made.” 

“ He is to be released, I presume, as 
a matter of course,” said the parson. 

The marquis made no allusion to this, 
but went on : “If that be done — and I 
must say that I think no such step 
would be taken by the bench at West- 
bury — whither will the young man be- 
take himself?” 

“ Home to his father, of course,” said 
the parson. 

“ Back into this parish, with his para- 
mour, to murder more of my tenants !” 

“ My lord, I cannot allow such an 
unjust statement to Be made,” said the 
parson. 

“ I wish to speak for one moment ; 
and I wish it to be remembered that I 
am addressing myself especially to your 
neighbor, Mr. Gilmore, who has done 
me the honor of waiting upon me here 
at my request. I do not object to your 
presence, Mr. Fenwick, or to that of any 
other gentleman,” and the marquis bow- 
ed to Mr. Puddleham, who had stood by, 
.hitherto, without speaking a word ; “but, 
if you please, I must carry out the pur- 
pose that has brought me here. I shall 
think it very sad indeed if this young 
man be allowed to take up his residence- 
in the parish after what has taken place.” 

“ His father has a house here,” said 
Mr. Gilmore. 

“ I am aware of the fact,” said the 
marquis. “ I believe that the young 
man’s father holds a mill from you, and 
some few acres of land ?” 

“ He has a very nice farm.” 

“ So be it. We will not quarrel about 
terms, Mr. Gilmore. I believe there is 
no lease .? — though, of course, that is no 
business of mine.” 

“ I must say that it is not, my lord,” 


said Mr. Gilmore, who was waxing wrothy 
and becoming very black about the 
brows. 

“ I have just said so ; but I suppose 
you will admit that I have some inter- 
est in this parish ? I presume that 
these two gentlemen, who are God’s 
ministers here, will acknowledge that it 
is my duty, as the owner of the greater 
part of the parish, to interfere ?” 

“ Certainly, my lord,” said Mr. Pud- 
dleham. Mr. Fenwick said nothing. He 
sat, or rather leant, against the edge of 
a table, and smiled. His brow was not 
black, like that of his friend ; but Gil- 
more, who knew him and who looked 
into his face, began to fear that the mar- 
quis would be addressed before long in 
terms stronger than he himself, Mr. Gil- 
more, would approve. 

“And when I remember,” continued 
his lordship, “ that the unfortunate man 
who has fallen a victim had been for 
nearly half a century a tenant of myself 
and of my family, and that he was foully 
murdered on my own property — dragged 
from his bed in the middle of the night, 
and ruthlessly slaughtered in this very 
house in which I am sitting — and that 
this has been done in a parish of which 
I own, I think, something over two- 
thirds—” 

“Two thousand and two acres out of 
two thousand nine hundred and ten,” 
said Mr. Puddleham. 

“ I suppose so. Well, Mr. Puddle- 
ham, you need not have interrupted me.” 

“ I beg pardon, my lord.” 

“What I mean to say is* this, Mr. 
Gilmore — that you should take steps to 
prevent that young man’s return among 
our people. You should explain to the 
father that it cannot be allowed. From 
what I hear, it would be no loss if the 
whole family left, the parish. I am 
told that one of the daughters is a— 
prostitute.” 

“It is too true, my lord,” said Mr. 
Puddleham. 

The parson turned round and looked 
at his colleague, but said nothing. It 
was one of the principles of his life that 
he wouldn’t quarrel with Mr. Puddle- 
ham ; and at the present moment he 


76 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


certainly did not wish to waste his anger 
on so wc;ak an enemy. 

“ I think that you should look to this, 
Mr. Gilmore,” said the marquis, com- 
pleting his harangue. 

“ I cannot conceive, my lord, by what 
right you dare to dictate to me in such 
a matter,” said Mr. Gilmore. 

‘‘ I have not dictated at all : I have 
simply expr'essed my opinion,” said the 
marquis. 

“ Now, my lord, will you allow me for 
a moment?” said Mr. Fenwick. “In 
the first place, if Sam Brattle could not 
find a home at the mill — which I hope 
he will do for many a long year to come 
— he should have one at the vicarage.” 

“ I dare say,” said the marquis. Mr. 
Puddleham held up both his hands. 

“ You might as well hold your tongue, 
Frank,” said Gilmore. 

“It is a matter on which I wish to 
say a word or two, Harry. I have been 
appealed to as one of God’s ministers 
here, and I acknowledge my responsi- 
bility. I never in my life heard any 
proposition more cruel or inhuman than 
that made by Lord Trowbridge. This 
young man is to be turned out because 
a tenant of his lordship has been mur- 
dered! He is to be adjudged to be 
guilty by us, without any trial, in the 
absence of all evidence, in opposition to 
the decision of the magistrates — ” 

“ It is not in opposition to the magis- 
trates, sir,” said the marquis. 

“ And to be forbidden to return to his 
own home, simply because Lord Trow- 
bridge thinks him guilty I My lord, his 
father’s house is his own, to entertain 
whom he may please, as much as is 
yours. And were I to suggest to you 
to turn out your daughters, it would be 
no worse an offence than your suggest- 
ing to Mr. Brattle that he should turn 
out his son.” 

“ My daughters ?” 

“Yes, your daughters, my lord.” 

“ How dare you, sir, mention my 
daughters ?” 

“ The ladies, I am well aware, are all 
that is respectable. I , have not the 
slightest wish that you should ill-use 
them. But if you desire that your family 


concerns should be treated with reserve 
and reticence, you had better learn to 
treat the family affairs of others in the 
same way.” 

The marquis by this time was on his 
feet, and was calling for Packer — was 
calling for his carriage and horses — was 
calling on the very gods to send down 
their thunder to punish such insolence 
as this. He had never heard of the like 
in all his experience. His daughters ! 
And then there came across his dis- 
mayed mind an idea that his daughters 
had been put upon a par with that young 
murderer, Sam Brattle — perhaps even 
on a par with something worse than this. 
And his daughters were such august 
persons — old and ugly, it is true, and 
almost dowerless in consequence of the 
nature of the family settlements and fam- 
ily expenditure. It was an injury and 
an insult that Mr. Fenwick should make 
the slightest allusion to his daughters ; 
but to talk of them in such a way, as 
though they were mere ordinary human 
beings ! The marquis had hitherto had 
his doubts, but now he was quite sure, 
that Mr. Fenwick was an infidel — “And 
a very bad sort of infidel, too,” as he 
said to Lady Caroline, on his 'return 
home. “ I never heard of such conduct 
in all my life,” said Lord Trowbridge, 
walking down to his carriage. “Who 
can be surprised that there should be 
murderers and prostitutes in the parish ?” 

“ My lord, they don’t sit under me,” 
said Mr. Puddleham. 

“ I don’t care who they sit under,” 
said his lordship. 

As they walked away together, Mr. 
Fenwick had just a word to say to 
Mr. Puddleham. “ My friend,” he said, 
“you were quite right about his lord- 
ship’s acres.” 

“ Those are the numbers,” said M r. 
Puddleham. 

“ I mean that you were quite right to 
make the observation. Facts are always 
valuable, and I am sure Lord Trowbridge 
was obliged to you. But I think you were 
a little wrong as to another statement.” 

“ What statement, Mr. Fenwick ?” 

“ What you said about poor Carry 
Brattle. You don’t know it as a fact.” 


hToit) dare you, sir, mention my daughters ?” — [Page ^6.] 





6 




? 










THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


77 


Everybody says so.” 

“ How do you know she has not mar- 
ried, an4 become an honest woman ?” 

“It is possible, of course. Though, 
as for that, when a young woman has 
once gone astray — ” 

“As did Mary Magdalen, for instance !” 

“ Mr. Fenwick, it was a very bad case.” 

“And isn’t my case very bad — and 
) ours ? Are we not in a bad way, un- 
less we believe and repent ? Have we 
not all so sinned as to deserve eternal 
punishment ?” 

“Certainly, Mr. Fenwick.” 

“ Then there can’t be much difference 
between her and us. She can’t deserve 
more than eternal punishment. If she 
believes and repents, all her sins will be 
white as snow.” 

“Certainly, Mr. Fenwick.” 

“ Then speak of her as you would of 
any other sister or brother — not as a 
thing that must be always vile because 
she has fallen once. Women .will so 
speak, and other men. One sees some- 
thing of a reason for it. But you and 
I, as Christian ministers, should never 
allow ourselves to speak so thought- 
lessly of sinners. Good-morning, Mr. 
Puddleham.” 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

BLANK PAPER. 

Early in October, Captain Marrable 
was called up to town by letters from 
Messrs. Block & Curling, and according 
to promise wrote various letters to Mary 
Lowther, telling her of The manner in 
which his business progressed. All of 
these letters were shown to Aunt Sarah, 
and would have been shown to Parson 
John, were it not that Parson John de- 
clined to read them. But though the 
letters were purely cousinly— just such 
letters as a brother might write — yet 
Miss Marrable thought that they were 
dangerous. She did not say so, but she 
thought that they were dangerous. Of 
late Mary had spoken no word of Mr. 
Gilmore ; and Aunt Sarah, through all 
this silence, was able to discover that 
Mr. Gilmore’s prospects were not be- 


I coming brighter. Mary herself, having 
quite made up her mind that Mr. Gil- 
more’s prospects, as far as she was con- 
cerned, were all over, could not decide 
how and when she should communicate 
the resolve to her lover. According to 
her present agreement with him, she 
was to write to him at once should she 
accept any other offer, and was to wait 
for six months if this should not be the 
case. Certainly there was no rival in 
the field, and therefore she did not quite 
know whether she ought or ought not to 
write at once in her present circum- 
stances of assured determination. She 
soon told herself that in this respect also 
she would go to her new-found brother 
for advice. She would ask him, and do 
just as he might bid her. Had he not 
already proved how fit a person he was 
to give advice on such a subject ? But 
before she could do this he was up \'.i 
London, and this was a matter on which 
she could hardly consult him by letter. 

After an absence of ten days he came 
home, and nothing could exceed Maiy’s 
anxiety as to the tidings which he sho Id 
bring with him. She endeavored not to 
be selfish about the matter, but she could 
not but acknowledge that, even as re- 
garded herself, the difference between his 
going to India or staying at home v.as 
so great as to affect the whole color of 
her life. There was, perhaps, something 
of the feeling of being subject to deser- 
tion about her, as she remembered tlf-i: 
in giving up Mr. Gilmore she must al: > 
give up the Fenwicks. She could nut 
hope to go to Bullhampton again, at 
least for many a long day. She would 
be very much alone if her new brother 
were to leave her now. On the morning 
after his arrival he came up to them at 
Uphill, and told them that the matter 
was almost settled : Messrs. Block & 
Curling had declared that it was as good 
as settled. The money would be saved, 
and there would be, out of the twenty 
thousand pounds which he had inherited, 
something over four thousand pounds for 
him ; so that he need not return to India. 
He was in very high spirits, and did not 
speak a word of his father’s iniquities. 

“Oh, Walter, what a joy!” said 


78 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


Mary, with the tears streaming from her 
eyes. 

He took her by both her hands and 
kissed her forehead. At that moment 
Aunt Sarah was not in the room. 

“ I am so very, very happy !” she 
said, pressing her little hands against 
his. 

Why should he not kiss her ? — was he 
not her brother ? And then, before he 
went, she remembered she had some- 
thing special to tell him — something to 
ask him. Would he not walk with her 
that evening ? Of course he would walk 
with her. 

“ Mary dear,” said her aunt, putting 
her little arm round her niece’s waist, 
and embracing her, fall in love 

with Walter.” 

“ How can you say anything so fool- 
ish, Aunt Sarah ?” 

“ It would be very foolish to do.” 

■‘You don’t understand how com- 
pletely different it is. Do you think I 
could be so intimate with him as I am 
if anything of the kind were possible ?” 

“ I do not know how that may be.” 

“ Do not begrudge it me because I 
have found a cousin that I can love 
almost as I would a brother. There 
has never been anybody yet for whom I 
could have that sort of feeling.” 

Aunt Sarah, whatever she might think, 
had not the heart to repeat her caution ; 
and Mary, quite happy and contented 
with herself, put on her hat to run down 
the hill and meet her cousin at the great 
gates of the Lowtown Rectory. Why 
should he be dragged up the hill to 
escort a cousin down again ? This ar- 
rangement had, therefore, been made 
between them. 

For the first mile or two the talk was 
all about Messrs. Block & Curling and 
the money. Captain Marrable was so 
full of his own purposes, and so well 
contented that so much should be saved 
to him out of the fortune he had lost, 
that he had perhaps forgotten that Mary 
required more advice. But when they 
had come to the spot on which they had 
before sat, she bade him stop and seat 
himself. 

« And now what is it ?” he said, as he 


rolled himself comfortaljly close to her 
side. 

She told her story and explained her 
doubts, and asked for the revelations of 
his wisdom. 

“ Are you quite sure about the pro- 
priety of this, Mary ?” he said. 

“ The propriety of what, Walter ?” 

“ Giving up a man who l^ves you so 
well, and who has so much to offer V 

“What was it you said yourself? 
Sure ! Of course I am sure. I am 
quite sure. I do not love him. Did I 
not tell you that there could be no doubt 
after what you said ?” 

“ I did not mean that my words should 
be so powerful.” 

“ They were powerful ; but, inde- 
pendently of that, I am quite sure now. 
If I could do it myself, I should be false 
to him. I know that I do not love 
him.” He was not looking at her where 
he was lying, but was playing with a 
cigar-case which he had taken out, as 
though he were about to resume his 
smoking. But he did not open the case 
or look toward her, or say a word to her. 
Two minutes had perhaps passed before 
she spoke again : “ I suppose it would 
be best that I should write to him at 
once 

“ There is no one else, then, you care 
for, Mary ?” he asked. 

“No one,” she said, as though the 
question were nothing. 

“It is all blank paper with you ?” 

“ Quite blank,” she said, and laughed. 
“ Do you know I almost think it always 
will be blank.” 

“ By G — , it is not blank with me !” 
he said, springing up and jumping to his 
feet. She stared at him, not in the 
least understanding what he meant — not 
dreaming even that he was about to tell 
her his love-secrets in reference to an- 
other. “I wonder what you think I’m 
made of, Mary — whether you imagine 
that I have any affection to bestow ?” 

“ I do not in the least understand.” 

“ Look here, dear,” and he knelt down 
beside her as he spoke: “it is simply 
this, that you have become to me more 
than all the world — that I love you better 
than my own soul — that your beauty and 




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I 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


sweetness and soft, darling touch are 
everything to me ; and then you come 
to me for advice ! I can only give you 
one bit of advice now, Mary.’’ 

“And what is that?” 

“ Love me.” 

“ I do love you.” 

“ Ay, but love me and be my wife.” 

She had to think of it, but she knew 
from the first moment that the thinking 
of it was a delight to her. She did not 
quite understand at first that her chosen 
brother might become her lover, with no 
other feeling than that of joy and tri- 
umph, and yet there was a consciousness 
that no other answer but one was pos- 
sible. In the first place, to refuse him 
anything, asked in love, would be impos- 
sible. She could not say No to him. 
She had struggled often in reference to 
Mr. Gilmore, and had found it impossible 
to say Yes. There was now the same 
sort of impossibility in regard to the No. 
She couldn’t blacken herself with such a 
lie. And yet though she was sure of 
this, she was so astounded by his decla- 
ration, so carried off her legs by the al- 
teration in her position, so hard at work 
within herself with her new endeavor to 
change the aspect in which she must 
look at the man, that she could not even 
bring herself to think of answering him. 
If he would only sit down near her for a 
while — very near — and not speak to her, 
she thought tliat she would be happy. 
Everything else was forgotten. Aunt 
Sarah’s caution, Janet Fenwick’s anger, 
poor Gilmore’s sorrow — of all these she 
thought not at all, or only allowed her 
mind to dwell on them as surrounding 
trifles, of which it would be necessary 
that she, that they (they two who were 
now all to each other) must dispose, as 
they must also of questions of income 
and such like little things. She was 
without a doubt. The man was her 
master, and had her in his keeping, and 
of course she would obey him. But she 
must settle her voice, and let her pulses 


79 

become calm, and remember nerself, be- 
fore she could tell him so. 

“Sit down again, Walter,” she said at 
last. 

“ Why should I sit .^” 

“ Because I ask you. Sit down, 
Walter.” 

“No. I understand how wise you 
will be, and how cold ; and I under- 
stand, too, what a fool I have been.” 

“ Walter, will you not come when I 
ask you .?” 

“Why should I sit?” 

“ That I may try to tell you how dear- 
ly I love you.” 

He did not sit, but he threw himself 
at her feet and buried his face upon her 
lap. There were but few more words 
spoken then. When it comes to this, 
that a pair of lovers are content to sit 
and rub th^r feathers together like two 
birds, there is not much more need of 
talking. Before they had arisen, her 
fingers had been playing through his 
curly hair, and he had kissed her lips 
and cheeks as well as her forehead. She 
had begun to feel what it was to have a 
lover and to love him. She could already 
talk to him almost as though he were a 
part of herself, could whisper to him little 
words of nonsense, could feel that every- 
thing of hers was his, and everything of 
his was hers. She knew more clearly 
now even than she had done before that 
she had never loved Mr. Gilmore, and 
never could have loved him. And that 
other doubt had been solved for her. 
“ Do you know,” she had said, not yet 
an hour ago, “ that I think it always will 
be blank ?” And now every spot of the 
canvas was covered. 

“ We must go home now,” she said 
at last. 

“ And tell Aunt Sarah ?” he replied, 
laughing. 

“Yes, and tell Aunt Sarah, but not 
to-night. I can do nothing to-night but 
think about it. Oh, Walter, I am so 
happy !” 



PART III. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

SAM BRATTLE RETURNS HOME. 

T he Tuesday’s magistrates’ meeting 
had come off at Heytesbury, and 
Sam Brattle had been discharged. Mr. 
Jones had on this occasion indignantly 
demanded that his client should be set 
free without bail, but to this the magis- 
trates would not assent. The attor- 
ney attempted to demonstrate to them 
that they could not require bail for the 
reappearance of an accused person when 
that accused person was discharged sim- 
ply because there was no evidence 
against him. But to this exposition of 
the law Sir Thomas and his brother 
magistrates would not listen. “ If the 
other persons should at last be taken, 
and Brattle should not then be forth- 
coming, justice would suffer,” said Sir 
Thomas. County magistrates, as a rule, 
are more conspicuous for common sense 
and cool instincts than for sound law ; 
and Mr. Jones may perhaps have been 
right in his view of the case. Neverthe- 
less, bail was demanded, and was not 
forthcoming without considerable trouble. 
Mr. Jay, the ironmonger at Warminster, 
declined. When spoken to on the sub- 
ject by Mr. Fenwick, he declared that 


the feeling among the gentry was so 
strong against his brother-in-law that 
he could not bring himself to put him- 
self forward. He couldn’t do it, for the 
sake of his family. When Fenwick 
promised to make good the money* risk. 
Jay declared that the difficulty did not 
lie there. “There’s the marquis, and 
Sir Thomas, and Squire Greenthorne, 
and our parson, all say, sir, as how he 
shouldn’t be bailed at all. And then, 
sir, if one has a misfortune belonging to 
one, one doesn’t want to flaunt it in 
everybody’s face, sir.” And there was 
trouble, too, with George Brattle from 
Fordingbridge. George Brattle was a 
prudent, hard-headed, hard-working man, 
not troubled with much sentiment, and 
caring very little what any one could say 
of him as long as his rent was paid ; but 
he had taken it into his head that Sam 
was guilty, that he was at any rate a 
thoroughly bad fellow, who should be 
turned out of the * Brattle nest, and thal 
no kindness was due to him. With the 
farmer, how'ever, Mr. Fenwick did pre- 
vail, and then the parson became the 
other bondsman himself. He had been 
strongly advised — by Gilmore, by Gil- 
more’s uncle, the prebendary at Salis- 
bury, and by others — not to put himself 



THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


forward in this position. The favor which 
he had shown to the young man had not 
borne good results, either, for the young 
man or for himself ; and it would be un- 
wise (so said his friends) to subject his 
own name to more remark than was ne- 
cessary. He had so far assented as to 
promise not to come forward himself if 
other bailsmen could be procured. But 
when the difficulty came, he offered him- 
self, and was, of necessity, accepted. 

When Sam was released, he was like 
a caged animal, who, when liberty is first 
offered to him, does not know how to 
use it. He looked about him in the hall 
of the court-house, and did not at first 
seem disposed to leave it. The con- 
stable had asked him whether he had 
means of getting home, to which he re- 
plied, that “it wasn’t no more than a 
walk.” Dinner was offered to him by 
the constable, but this he refused, and 
then he stood glaring about him. After 
a while, Gilmore and Fenwick came up 
to him, and the squire was the first to 
speak. 

“ Brattle,” he said, “ I hope you will 
now go home, and remain there working 
with your father for the present.” 

“ I don’t know nothing about that,” 
said the lad, not deigning to look at the 
squire. 

“ Sam, pray go home at once,” said 
the parson. “ We have done what we 
could for you, and you should not op- 
pose us.” 

“Mr. Fenwick, if you tells me to go 
to — to — to — ” (he was going to mention 
some very bad place, but was restrained 
by the parson’s presence) — “ if you tells 
me to go anywheres. I’ll go.’’ 

“ That’s right. Then I tell you to go 
to the mill.” 

“ I don’f know as father’ll let me in,” 
said he, almost breaking into sobs as he 
spoke. 

“ That he will, heartily. Do you tell 
him that you had a word or two with me 
here, and that I’ll come up and call on 
him to-morrow.” Then he put his hand 
into his pocket, and, whispering some- 
thing, offered the lad money. But Sam 
turned away and shook his head, and 
walked off. “ I don’t believe that that 


fellow had any more to do with 
you or I,” said Fenwick. 

“ I don’t know what to beliK . 
Gilmore. “ Have you heard di.t- u 
marquis is in the town? Gret ^ - 
just told me so.” 

“ Then I had better get out c 
Heytesbury isn’t big enough for me iwo 
of us. Come, you’ve done here, and 
you might as well jog home.” 

Gilmore dined at the vicarage that 
evening, and of course the day’s work 
was discussed. The quarrel, too, which 
had taken place at the farmhouse had 
only yet been in part described to Mrs. 
Fenwick. “Do you know I feel half tri- 
umphant and half frightened?” Mrs. Fen- 
wick said to the squire. “ I know that 
the marquis is an old fool — imperious, 
conceited and altogether unendurable 
when he attempts to interfere. And yet 
I have a kind of feeling that because 
he is a marquis, and because he owns 
two thousand and so many acres in the 
parish, and because he lives at Turn- 
over Park, one ought to hold him in 
awe.” 

“ Frank didn’t hold him in awe yes- 
terday,” said the squire. 

“ He holds nothing in awe,” said the 
wife. 

“You wrong me there, Janet. I hold 
you in great awe, and every lady in 
Wiltshire more or less ; and I think I 
may say every woman. And I would 
hold him in a sort of awe too, if he didn’t 
drive me beyond myself by his mixture 
of folly and prjde.” 

“ He can do us a great deal of mis- 
chief, you know,” said Mrs. Fenwick. 

“What he can do, he will do,” said 
the parson. “ He even gave me a bad 
name, no doubt ; but I fancy he was 
generous enough to me in that way be- 
fore yesterday. He will now declare 
that I am the Evil One himself, and 
people won’t believe that. A continued, 
persistent enmity, always at work, but 
kept within moderate bounds, is more 
dangerous now-a-days than a hot fever 
of revengeful wrath. The marquis can’t 
send out his men-at-arms and have me 
knocked on the head or cast into a dun- 
geon. He can only throw mud at me, 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


i the more he throws at once the less 
I reach me.” 

As to Sam, they were agreed that, 
.liether he were innocent or guilty, the 
' old miller should be induced to regard 
him as innocent, as far as their joint 
exertion in that direction might avail. 
“ He is innocent before the law till he 
has been proved to be guilty,” said the 
squire. 

« Then of course there can be nothing 
wrong in telling his father that he is in-- 
nocent,” said the lady. The squire did 
not quite admit this, and the parson 
smiled as he heard the argument, but 
they both acknowledged that it would be 
right to let it be considered throughout 
the parish that Sam was to be regarded 
as blameless for that night’s transaction. 
Nevertheless, Mr. Gilmore’s * mind on 
the subject was not changed. 

« Have you heard from Loring ?” the 
squire asked Mrs. Fenwick, as he got 
up to leave the vicarage. 

« Oh yes — constantly. She is quite 
well, Mr. Gilmore.” 

“ I sometimes think that I’ll go off 
and have a look at her.” 

“ I’m sure both she and her aunt would 
be glad to see you.” 

“ But would it be wise ?” > 

“If you ask me, I’m bound to say 
that I think it would not be wise. If I 
were you, I would leave her for a while. 
Mary is as good as gold, but she is a 
woman ; and, like other women, the 
more she is sought the more difficult 
she will be.” , 

“ It always seems to me,” said Mr. 
Gilmore, “that to be successful in love 
a man should not be in love at all — or 
at any rate he should hide it.” Then 
he went off home alone, feeling on his 
heart that pernicious load of a burden 
which comes from the unrestrained long- 
ing for some good thing which cannot 
be attained. It seemed to him now that 
nothing in life would be worth a thought 
if Mary Lowther should continue to say 
him nay ; and it seemed to him, too, 
that unless the yea were said very 
quickly all his aptitudes for enjoyment 
would be worn out of him. 

On the next morning, immediately 


after breakfast, Mr. and Mrs. Fenwick 
went down to the mill together. They 
went through the village, and thence by a 
pathway down to a little foot-bridge, and 
so along the'river side. It was a beauti- 
ful October morning — the 7th of October 
— and Fenwick, as he went, talked of 
the pheasants. Gilmore, though he was 
a sportsman, and shot rabbits and part- 
ridges about his own property, and went 
occasionally to shooting-parties at a dis- 
tance, preserved no game. There had 
been some old unpleasantness about the 
marquis’ pheasants, and he had given it 
up. There could be no doubt that his 
property in the parish, being chiefly low- 
lying land and water meads unfit for 
coverts, was not well disposed for pre- 
serving pheasants, and that in shooting 
he would more likely shoot Lord Trow- 
bridge’s birds than his own. But it was 
equally certain that Lord Trowbridge’s 
pheasants made no scruple of feeding on 
his land. Nevertheless, he had thought 
it right to give up all idea of keeping up 
a head of game for his own use in Bull- 
hampton. “Upon my word, if I were 
Gilmore,” said the parson, as a bird rose 
from the ground close at their feet, “ I 
should cease to be nice about the shoot- 
ing after what happened yesterday.” 

“You don’t mean that you would re- 
taliate, Frank.?” 

“ I think I should.” 

“Is that good parson’s law .?” 

“ It’s very good squire’s law. And 
as for that doctrine of non-retaliation, a 
man should be very sure of his own mo- 
tives before he submits to it. If a man 
be quite certain that he is really actuated 
by a Christian’s desire to forgive, it may 
be all very well ; but if there be any ad- 
mixture of base alloy in his gold — if he 
allows himself to think that he may 
avoid the evils of pugnacity, and have 
things go smooth for him here and be- 
come a good Christian by the same pro- 
cess — why then I think he is likely to 
fall to the ground between two stools.” 
Had Lord Trowbridge heard him, his 
lordship would now have been quite sure 
that Mr. Fenwick was an infidel. 

They had both doubted whether Sam 
would be found at the mill, but there he 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


83 


was, hard at work among the skeleton 
timbers when his friends reached the 
place. « I am glad to see you at home 
again, Sam,” said Mrs. Fenwick, with 
something, however, of an inner feeling 
that perhaps she might be saluting a 
murderer. Sam touched his cap, but 
did not utter a word or look away from 
nis work. They' passed on amidst the 
heaps in front of the mill, and came to 
the porch before the cottage. Here, as 
had been his wont in all these idle days, 
the miller was sitting with a pipe in his 
mouth. When he saw the lady he got 
up and ducked his head, and then sat 
down again. “ If your wife is here. I’ll 
just step in, Mr. Brattle,” said Mrs. 
Fenwick. 

“ She be there, ma’am,” said the mil- 
ler, pointing toward the kitchen window 
with his head. So Mrs. Fenwick lifted 
the latch and entered. 

The parson sat himself down by the 
miller’s side : “ I am heartily glad, Mr. 
Brattle, that Sam is back with you here 
once again.” 

“He be there, at work among the rest 
o’ ’em,” said the miller. 

“ I saw him as I came along. I hope 
he will remain here now.” 

“I can’t say. Muster Fenwick.” 

“ But he intends to do so ?” 

“I can’t say. Muster Fenwick.” 

“ Would it not be well that you should 
ask him 

“Not as I knows on, Mr. Fenwick.” 

It was manifest enough that the old 
man had not spoken to his son on the 
subject of the murder, and that there 
was no confidence — at least no confi- 
dence that had been expressed — betw'een 
the father and the son. No one had as 
yet heard the miller utter any opinion as 
to Sam’s innocence or his guilt. This 
of itself seemed to the clergyman to be a 
very terrible condition for two persons 
who were so' closely united, and who 
were to live together, work together, eat 
together and have mutual interests. “ I 
hope, Mr. Brattle,” he said, “that you 
give Sam the full benefit of his dis- 
charge.” 

“ He’ll get his vittles and his bed, and 
a trifle of wages, if he works for ’em.” 


“I didn’t mean that. I’m quite sure 
you wouldn’t see him want a comfortable- 
home as long as you have one to give 
him.” 

“There ain’t much comfort about it 
now.” 

“ I was speaking of your own opinion 
of the deed that was done. My own 
opinion is, that Sam had nothing to do 
with it.” 

“I’m sure I can’t say. Muster Fen- 
wick.” 

“ But it would be a comfort to you to 
think that he is innocent.” 

“ I hain’t no comfort in talking about 
it — not at all; and I’d rayther not, if it’s 
all one to you. Muster Fenwick.” 

“ I will not ask another question, bul 
I’ll repeat my own opinion, Mr. Brattle. 
I don’t believe that he had anything 
more to do with the robbery or the mur- 
der than I had.” 

“ I hope not. Muster Fenwick. Mur- 
der is a terrible crime. And now, if 
you’ll tell me how much it was you paid 
the lawyer at Heytesbury — ” 

“ I cannot say as yet. It will be some 
trifle. You need not trouble yourself 
about that.” 

“ But I mean to pay ’un. Muster Fen- 
wick. I can pay my way as yet, though 
it’s hard enough at times.” The parson 
was obliged to promise that Mr. Jones’ 
bill of charges should be sent to him, 
and then he called his wife and they left 
the mill. Sam was still up among the 
timbers, and had not once come down 
while the visitors were in the cottage. 
Mrs. Fenwick had been more successful 
with the women than the parson had 
with the father. She had taken upon 
herself to say that she thoroughly be- 
lieved Sam to be innocent, and they had 
thanked her with many protestations of 
gratitude. 

They did not go back by the way they 
had come, but went up to the road, 
which they crossed, and thence to some 
outlying cottages which were not very 
far from Hampton Privets Flouse. From 
these cottages there was a path across 
the fields back to Bullhampton, which 
led to the side of a small wood belonging 
to the marquis. There was a good deal 


84 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


of woodland just here, and this special 
copse, called Hampton Bushes, was 
known to be one of the best pheasant 
coverts in that part of the country. 
Whom should they meet, standing on 
the path, armed with his gun, and with 
his keeper behind him, armed with an- 
other, but the Marquis of Trowbridge 
himself! They had heard a shot or two, 
but they had thought nothing of 'it, or 
they would have gone back to the road. 
« Don’t speak,” said the parson, as he 
walked on quickly with his wife on his 
arm. The marquis stood and scowled, 
but he had the breeding of a gentleman, 
and when Mrs. Fenwick was close to 
him he raised his hat. The parson also 
raised his, the lady bowed, and then they 
passed on without a word. “ I had no 
excuse for doing so, or I would certainly 
have told him that Sam Brattle was 
comfortably at home with his father,” said 
the parson. 

« How you do like a fight, Frank I” 

“ If it’s stand up and all fair, I don’t 
dislike it.” 


CHAPTER XX. 

I HAVE A JUPITER OF MY OWN NOW. 

When Mary Lowther returned home 
from that last walk with her cousin which 
has been mentioned, she was quite de- 
termined that she would not disturb her 
happiness on that night by the task of 
telling her engagement to her aunt. It 
must, of course, be told, and that at 
once ; and it must be told also to Parson 
John ; and a letter must be written to 
Janet ; and another, which would be very 
difficult in the writing, to Mr. Gilmore; 
and she must be prepared to hear a cer- 
tain amount of opposition from all her 
friends ; but for the present moment she 
would free herself from these troubles. 
To-morrow, after breakfast, she would 
tell her aunt. To-morrow, at lunch- 
time, Walter would come up the lane as 
her accepted lover. And then, after 
lunch, after due consultation with him 
and with Aunt Sarah, the letter should 
be written. 

She had solved, at any rate, one doubt. 


and had investigated one mystery. While 
conscious of her own coldness towarc 
Mr. Gilmore, she had doubted whether 
she was capable of loving a man — of 
loving him as Janet Fenwick loved her 
husband. Now she would not admit to 
herself that any woman that ever lived 
adored a man more thoroughly than she 
adored Walter Marfable. It was sweet 
to her to see and to remember the mo- 
tions of his body. When walking by his 
side she could hardly forbear to touch 
him with her shoulder. When parting 
from him it was a regret to her to take 
her hand from his. And she told her- 
self that all this had come to her jn the 
course of one morning’s walk, and won- 
dered at it that her heart should be a 
thing capable of being given away so 
quickly. It had, in truth, been given 
away quickly enough, though the work 
had not been done in that one morning’s 
walk. She had been truly honest, to 
herself and to others, when she said that 
her cousin Walter was and should be a 
brother to her ; but had her new bro- 
ther, in his brotherly confidence, told her 
that his heart was devoted to some other 
woman, she would have suffered a blow, 
though she would never have confessed 
even to herself that she suffered. On 
that evening when she reached home, 
she said very little. “ She was so tired ! 
Might she go to bed ?” « What 1 at nine 
o’clock ?” asked Aunt Sarah. « I’ll stay 
up if you wish it,” said Mary. But be- 
fore ten she was alone in her own cham- 
ber, sitting in her own chair, with her 
arms folded, feeling, rather than think- 
ing, how divine a thing it was to be in 
love. What could she not do for him ? 
What would she not endure to have the 
privilege of living with him ? What 
other good fortune in life could be equal 
to this good fortune ? Then she thought 
of her relations with Mr. Gilmore, and 
shuddered as she remembered how near 
she had been to accepting him. « It 
would have been so wrong. And yet I 
did not see it. With him I am sure 
that it is right, for I feel that in going to 
him I can be every bit his own.” So 
she thought and so she dreamed ; and 
then the morning came and she had to 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPT 


85 


go down to her aunt. She ate her 
breakfast almost in silence, having re- 
solved that she would tell her story the 
moment breakfast was over. She had, 
over night and while she was in bed, 
studiously endeavored not to con any 
mode of telling it. Up to the moment 
at which she rose her happiness was, if 
possible, to be untroubled. But while 
she dressed herself she endeavored to 
arrange her plans. She at last came to 
the conclusion that she could do it best 
without any plan. 

As soon as Aunt Sarah had finished 
her breakfast, and just as she was about 
to proceed, according to her morning 
custom, down stairs to the kitchen, Mary 
spoke : “ Aunt Sarah, I have something 
to tell you. I may as well bring it out 
at once. I am engaged to marry Walter 
Marrable.” Aunt Sarah immediately let 
fall the sugar-tongs and stood speechless. 
“ Dear aunt, do not look as if you were 
displeased. Say a kind word to me. I 
am sure you do not think that I have 
Intended to deceive you.” 

« No ; I do not think that,” said Aunt 
Sarah. 

“ And is that all ?” 

“ I am '^ery much surprised. It vVas 
yesterday . you told me, when 1 h; 
at this, V t. he was n ■ ^nore you than 
a coush’ or a I rother 

“And «o T th^iUgnt — indeed I did. 
But -vne;!, he i*. :d me how it was with 
him, I rnew ai orce that I had only one 
ans'vcr to give. No other answer was 
po.‘ d' jle. 1 Ic-’e him better than any 
or. eisf in a; .le world. I feel that I 
ctu pr ise be his wife without the 
1 . frservri fear. I don’t know why 

it slv:,. I i o, but it is. I know I am 
r: ;!'i n d is.” Aunt Sarah still stood 
r'i<c t, inediuting. “Don’t you think I 

■' »'ight, i. eling as I do, to tell him so? 
i nad I ''ore become certain — quite, 
C o: raruin — that it was impossible to 
g:. v; ai'v other answer but one to Mr. 
iT. Dearest aunt, do speak to me.” 

“ » da not know what you will have 
to h ve upon.” 

« ’ is settled, you know, that he will 
ST. our or five thousand pounds out of 
hi-; money, and I have got tw’elve hun- 


dred. It is not .. rjch, but n \ ill be just 
something; of C(^tse he ,v -I Temain in 
the army, and I s laii be a -hiier’s wife. 

I shall think noi iing of going out to 
India if he wishes it, but I don’t think 
he means that. Dear Aunt Sarah, do 
say one word of congratulation.” 

Aunt Sarah did not know how to 
congratulate her niece. It seemed to 
her that any congratulation must be 
false and hypocritical. To her thinking, 
it would be a most unfitting match. It 
seemed to her that such an engagement 
had been most foolish. She was aston- 
ished at Mary’s weakness, and was in- 
dignant with Walter Marrable. As re- 
garded Mary, , though she had twice 
uttered a word or two intended as a 
caution, yet she had never thought it 
possible that a girl so steady in her 
ordinary demeanor, so utterly averse to 
all flirtation, so little given to the weak- 
ness of feminine susceptibility, would fall 
at once into such 3 quagmire of indis- 
creet love-+roubies. The caution had 
beCi. im ended rather in regard to out- 
; ward- appeal on oe:!, o^d perhaps with the 
I view of preventing the possibility of 
! >-!rre slight heart-scratches, than with 
; the :Tca that danger of this nature was 
; to be dieaded. As Mr. Gilmore was 
there as an acknowledged suitor — a 
suitor as to whose ultimate success 
Aunt Sarah had her strong opinions — it 
would be well those cousinly-brotherly 
associations and confidences should not 
become so close as to create possible 
embarrassment. Such had been the 
nature of Aunt Sarah’s caution ; and 
now, in the course of a week or two, 
when the young people were in truth 
still strangers to each other — when Mr. 
Gilmore was still waiting for his answer 
— Mary came to her and told her that 
the engagement was a thing completed ! 
How could she utter a word of con- 
gratulation ? 

“You mean, then, to say that you 
disapprove of it ?” said Mary, almost 
sternly. 

“ I cannot say that I think it wise.” 

“ I am not speaking of wisdom. Of 
course, Mr. Gilmore is very mucii richer, 
and all that.” 


/ 


S6 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON, 


“You know, Mary, that I would not 
counsel you to marry a man because he 
was rich.” 

“ That is what you mean when you 
tell me I am not wise. I tried it, with 
all the power of thought and calculation 
that I could give to it, and I found that 
I could not marry Mr. Gilmore.” 

“ I am not speaking about that now.” 

“You mean that Walter is so poor 
that he never should be allowed to 
marry.” 

“ I don’t care twopence about Walter.” 

“ But I do. Aunt Sarah. I care more 
about him than all the world besides. I 
had to think for him.” 

“You did not take much time to 
think.” 

“ Hardly a minute, and yet it was 
sufficient.” Then she paused, waiting 
for her aunt, but it seemed that her aunt 
had nothing further to say. “Well,” 
continued Mary, “if it must be so, it 
must. If you cannot wish me joy — ” 

“ Dearest, you know well enough that 
I wish you all happiness.” 

“ This is my happiness.” It seemed 
to the bewildered old lady that the whole 
nature of the girl was altered. Mary 
was speaking now as might have spoken 
some enthusiastic young female who had 
at last succeeded in obtaining for herself 
the possession — more or less permanent 
— of a young man, after having fed her 
imagination on novels for the last five 
years ; whereas, Mary Lowther had 
hitherto, in all moods of her life, been 
completely opposite to such feminine 
ways and doings. “Very well,” con- 
tinued Mary, “we will say nothing more 
about it at present. I am greatly grieved 
that I have incurred your displeasure, 
but I cannot wish it otherwise.” 

“ I have said nothing of displeasure.” 

“Walter is to be up after lunch, and 
I will only ask that he may not be re- 
ceived with black looks. If it must be 
visited as a sin, let it be visited on 
me.” 

“ Mary, that is both unkind and un- 
generous.” 

“ If you knew. Aunt Sarah, how I have 
longed during the night for your kind 
voice — for your sympathy and approval !” 


Aunt Sarah paused again for a moment, 
and then went down to her domestic 
duties without another word. 

In the afternoon Walter came, but 
Aunt Sarah did not see him. When 
Mary went to her, the old lady declared 
that for the present it would be better 
so. “ I do not know what to say to 
him at present. I must think of it, and 
speak to his uncle, and try to find out 
what had best be done.” She was sit- 
ting as she said this up in her own room, 
without even a book in her hand : in 
very truth passing the hour in an en- 
deavor to decide what, in the present 
emergency, she ought to say or do. 
Mary stooped over her . and kissed her, 
and the aunt returned her niece’s caresses. 
“ Do not let you and me quarrel, at any 
rafe,” said Miss Marrable. “ Who else 
is there that I care for? Whose happi- 
ness is anything to me except yours ?” 

“ Then come to him, and tell him that 
he also shall be dearer to you.” 

“ No ; at any rate not now. Of 
course you can marry, Mary, without 
any sanction from me. I do not pre- 
tend that you owe to me that obedience 
which would be due to a mother. But 
I cannot say — at least not yet — that such 
sanction as I have to give can be given 
to this engagement. I have a dread 
that it will come to no good. It grieves 
me. I do not forbid you to receive him, 
but for the present it would be better 
that I should not see him.”, 

“ What is her objection ?’*’ demanded 
Walter, with grand indignation. 

“ She thinks we shall be poor.” 

“ Shall we ask her for anything ? Of 
course we shall be poor. For the pres- 
ent there will be but a poor three hundred 
a year, or thereabouts, beyond my pro- 
fessional income. A few years back,' if 
so much had been secured, friends would 
have thought that everything necessary 
had been done. If you are afraid, 
Mary — ” 

“You know I am not afraid.” 

“ What is it to her, then ? Of course 
we shall be poor, very poor. But we 
can live.” 

There did come upon Mary Lowther 
a feeling that Walter spoke of the n'eces- 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


sity of a comfortable income in a manner 
very different from that in which he had 
of late been discussing the same subject 
ever since she had known him. He 
had declared that it was impossible that 
he should exist in England as a bachelor 
on his professional income, and yet sure- 
ly he would be poorer as a married man, 
with that three hundred a year added to 
it, than he would have been without it, 
and also without a wife. But what girl 
that loves a man can be angry with him 
for such imprudence and such incon- 
sistency 1 She had already told him 
that she would be ready, if it were ne- 
cessary, to go with him to India. She 
had said so before she went up to her 
aunt’s room. He had replied that he 
hoped no such sacrifice would be de- 
manded from her. “There can be no 
self-sacrifice on my part,” she replied, 
“unless I am required to give up you.” 
Of course he had taken her in his arms 
and kissed her. There are moments in 
one’s life in which not to be imprudent, 
not to be utterly, childishly forgetful of all 
worldly wisdom, would be to be brutal, 
inhuman and devilish. ♦“Had he told 
Parson John ?” she asked. 

“ Oh yes !” 

“ And what does he say ?” 

“Just nothing. He winced his eye- 
brows, and suggested ‘that I had changed 
my ideas of life.’ ‘ So I have,’ I said. 
‘ All right !’ he replied. ‘ I hope that 
Block & Curling won’t have made any 
mistake about the five thousand pounds.’ 
That was all he said. No doubt he 
thinks we’re two fools, but then our 
folly won’t embarrass him.” 

“ Nor will it embarrass Aunt Sarah,” 
said Mary. 

“But there is this difference. If we 
come to grief. Parson John will eat his 
dinner without the slightest interference 
with his appetite from our misfortunes, 
but Aunt Sarah would suffer on your 
account.” 

“ She would, certainly,” said Mary. 

“ But we will not come to grief. At 
any rate, darling, we cannot consent to 
be made wise by the prospect of her 
possible sorrows on our behalf.” 

It was agreed that on that afternoon 


B7 

Mary should write both to Mr. Gilmore 
and to Janet Fenwick. She offered to 
keep her letters and show them, when 
written, to her lover, but he declared 
that he would prefer not to see them. 
“It is enough for me that I triumph,” 
he said as he left her. When he had 
gone she at once told her aunt that she 
would write the letters, and bring that to 
Mr. Gilmore to be read by her when 
they were finished. “ I would postpone 
it for a while, if I were you,” said Aunt 
Sarah. But Mary declared that any 
such delay would be unfair to Mr. Gil- 
more. She did write the letters before 
dinner, and they were as follow : 

“Boring, October 15, 1868. 

“ My Dear Mr. Gilmore : When 
last you came down to the vicarage to 
see me, I promised you, as you may 
perhaps remember, that if it should come 
to pass that I should engage myself to 
any other man, I would at once let you 
know that it was so. I little thought 
then that I should so soon be called 
upon to keep my promise. I will not 
pretend that the writing of this letter is 
not very painful to me, but I know tliat 
it is my duty to write it, and to put an 
end to a suspense which you have been 
good enough to feel on my account. 
You have, I think, heard the name of 
my cousin. Captain Walter Marrable, * 
who returned from India two or three 
months ago. I found him staying here 
with h\s uncle, the clergyman, and now 
I am engaged to be his wife. 

“Perhaps it would be better that 1 
should say nothing more than this, and 
that I should leave myself and my cha- 
racter and name to your future kindness 
— or unkindness — without any attempt 
to win the former or to decry the latter ; 
but you have been to me ever so good 
and noble that Tcannot bring myself to 
be so cold and short. I have always felt 
that your preference for me has been a 
great honor to me. I have appreciated 
your esteem most highly, and have 
valued your approbation more than 1 
have been able to say. If it could be 
possible that I should in future have 
your friendship, I should value it more 


88 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON, 


than that of any other person. God 
bless you, Mr. Gilmore ! I shall always 
hope that you may be happy, and I shall 
hear with delight any tidings which may 
seem to show that you are so. 

“ Pray believe that I am 
“Your most sincere friend, 

“ Mary Lowther. 

“ I have thought it best to tell Janet 
Fenwick what I have done.” 

, “ Loring, Thursday. 

“ Dearest Janet : I wonder what 
you will say to my news 1 But you 
must not scold me. Pray do not scold 
me. It could never, never have been as 
you wanted. I have engaged myself to 
marry my cousin, Captain Walter Mar- 
rable, who is a nephew of Sir Gregory 
Marrable, and a son of Colonel Mar- 
rable ; you will remember all about him, 
and, I dare say, knew him years ago. 
We shall be very poor, having not more 
than three hundred a year above his pay 
as a captain ; but if he had nothing, I 
think I should do the same. Do you 
remember how I used to doubt whether 
I should ever have that sort of love for 
a man for which I used to envy you ? I 
don’t envy you any longer, and I don’t 
regard Mr. Fenwick as being nearly so 
divine as I used to do. I have a Jupiter 
of my own now, and need envy no woman 
the reality of her love. 

“ I have written to Mr. Gilmore by 
the same post as will take this, and have 
just told him the bare truth. What else 
could I tell him 1 I have said some- 
thing horribly stilted about esteem and 
friendship, which I would have left out, 
only that my letter seemed to be heartless 
without it. He has been to me as good 
as a man could be ; but was it my fault 
that I could not love him ? If you knew 
how I tried — how I tried to make believe 
to myself that I loved him ; how I tried 
to teach myself that that sort of very 
chill approbation was the nearest ap- 
proach to love that I could ever reach ; 
and how I did this because you bade 
me ! If you could understand all this, 
then you would not scold me. And I 
did almost believe that it was so. But 
now — ! Oh dear ! How would it have 


been if I had engaged myself to Mr. 
Gilmore, and that then Walter Marrable 
had come to me ? I get sick when I 
think how near I was to saying that I 
would love a man whom I never could 
have loved. 

“ Of course I used to ask myself what 
I should do with myself. I suppose 
every woman living has to ask and to 
answer that question. , I used to try to 
think that it w'ould be well not to think 
of the outer crust of myself. What did 
it matter whether things were soft to ntie 
or not ? I could do my duty. And as 
this man was good and a gentleman, and 
endowed with high qualities and appro- 
priate tastes, why should he not have 
the wife he wanted ? I thought that 1 
could pretend to love him till after some 
fashion I should love him. But as I 
think of it now, all this seems to be so 
horrid ! I know now what to do with 
myself. To be his from head to foot ! 
To feel that nothing done for him would 
be mean or distasteful ! To stand at a 
washtub and wash his clothes if it were 
wanted ! Oh, Janet, I used to dread the 
time in which l^e would have to put his 
arm round me and kiss me. I cannot 
tell you what I feel now about that 
other he. 

“ I know well how provoked you will 
be, and it will all come of love for me ; 
but you cannot but own that I am right 
If you have any justice in you, write to 
me and tell me that I am right. 

Only that Mr. Gilmore is your great 
friend, and that therefore just at first 
Walter will not be your friend, I would 
tell you more about him — how handsome 
he is, how manly and how clever. And 
then his voice is like the music of the 
spheres. You won’t feel like being his 
friend at first, but you must look forward 
to his being your friend : you must love 
him, as I do Mr. Fenwick; and you 
must tell Mr. Fenwick that he must 
open his breast for the man who is to be 
my husband. Alas, alas ! I fear it will 
be long before I can go to Bullhampton. 
How I do wish that he would find some 
nice wife to suit him ! 

“ Good-bye, dearest Janet. If you are 
really good, you will write me a sweet. 












THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


kind, loving letter, wishing me joy. You 
must know all. Aunt Sarah has refused 
to congratulate me because the income 
is so small, nevertheless we ,have not 
quarreled. But the income will be 
nothing to you, and I do look forward 
to a kind word. When everything is 
settled, of course I will tell you. 

“Your most affectionate friend, 
“Mary Lowther.” 

The former letter of the two was 
shown to Miss Marrable. That lady 
was of opinion that it should not be 
sent, but would not say that, if to be 
sent, it could be altered for the better. 


CHAPTER XXI. 

PARSON JOHN THINKS ABOUT IT. 

On that same Thursday — the Thurs- 
day on which Mary Lowther wrote her 
two despatches to Bullhampton — Miss 
Marrable sent a note down to Parson 
John, requesting that she might have an 
interview with him. If he were at 
home and disengaged, she would go 
down to him that evening, or he might, 
if he pleased, come to her. The former 
she thought would be preferable. Par- 
son John assented, and very soon after 
dinner the private brougham carhe round 
from the Dragon, and conveyed Miss 
Marrable down to the rectory at Low- 
town. “ I am going down to Parson 
John,” said she to Mary : “ I think it 
best to speak to him about the engage- 
ment.” Mary received the information 
with a nod of her head that was intend- 
ed to be gracious, and Aunt Sarah pro- 
ceeded on her way. She found her 
cousin alone in his study, and imme- 
diately opened the subject which had 
brought her down the hill. 

“ Walter, I believe, has told you about 
this engagement, Mr. Marrable.” 

“Never was so astonished in my life ! 
He told me last night. I had begun to 
think that he was getting very fond of 
her, but I didn’t suppose it would come 
to this.” 

“Don’t you think it very imprudent ?” 

“ Of course it’s imprudent, Sarah. I 


It don’t require any thinking to be aware 
of that. It’s downright stupid — two 
cousins, with nothing a year between 
them, when no doubt each of them might 
do very well. They are well-born, and 
well-looking, and clever, and all that. 
It’s absurd, and I don’t suppose it will 
ever come to anything.” 

“ Did you tell Walter what you 
thought ?” 

“ Why should I tell him ? He knows 
what I think without my telling him ; 
and he wouldn’t care a pinch of snuff 
for my opinion. I tell you because you 
ask me.” 

“ But ought not something to be done 
to prevent it ?” 

“ What can we do ? I might tell him 
that I wouldn’t have him here any more, 
but I shouldn’t like to do that. Perhaps’ 
she’ll do your bidding.” 

“ I fear not, Mr. Marrable.” 

“ Then you may be quite sure he 
won’t do mine. He’ll go away and for- 
get her. That’ll be the end of it. It’ll 
be as good as a year gone out of her 
life, and she’ll lose this other lover of 
hers at — What’s the name of the place ? 
It’s a pity, but that’s what she’ll have to 
go through.” 

“Is he so light as that ?” asked Aunt 
Sarah, shocked. 

“ He’s about the same as other men, 
I take it ; and she’ll be the same as 
other girls. They like to have their bit 
of fun now, and there’d be no great 
harm, only such fun costs the lady so 
plaguey dear. As for their being mar- 
ried, I don’t think Walter will ever be 
such a fool as that.” 

There was something in this that was 
quite terrible to Aunt Sarah. Her Mary 
Lowther was to be treated in this way 
— to be played with as a plaything, and 
then to be turned off when the time for 
playing came to an end ! And this little 
game was to be played for Walter Mar- 
rable’s delectation, though the result of 
it would be the ruin of Mary’s pros- 
pects in life ! “ I think,” said she, 

“that if I believed him to be so base 
as that I would send him out of the 
house.” 

“ He does not mean to be base at all. 


go 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


He’s just like the rest of ’em,” said Par- 
son John. 

Aunt Sarah used every argument in 
her power to show that something should 
be done, but all to no purpose. She 
thought that if Sir Gregory were brought 
to interfere, that perhaps might have an 
effect, but the old clergyman laughed at 
this. What did Captain Walter Mar- 
rable, who had been in the army all his 
life, and who had no special favor to ex- 
pect from his uncle, care about Sir Gre- 
gory ? Head of the family, indeed ! 
What was the head of the family to 
him ? If a girl would be a fool, the girl 
must take the result of her folly. That 
was Parson John’s doctrine — that and a 
confirmed assurance that this engage- 
ment, such as it was, would lead to 
nothing. He was really very sorry for 
Mary, in whose praise he said ever so 
many good-natured things ; but she had 
not been the first fool, and she would 
not be the last : it was not his business, 
and he could do no good by interfer- 
ing. At last, however, he did promise 
that he would himself speak to Walter. 
Nothing would come of it, but, as his 
cousin asked him, he would speak to his 
nephew. 

He waited for four-and-twenty hours 
before he spoke, and during that time 
was subject to none of those terrors 
which were now making Miss Marrable’s 
life a burden to her. In his opinion it 
was almost a pity that a young fellow 
like Walter should be interrupted in his 
amusement. According to his view of 
life, very much wisdom was not expected 
from ladies, young or old. They, for 
the most part, had their bread found for 
them, and were not required to do any- 
thing, whether they were rich or poor. 
Let them be ever so poor, the disgrace 
of poverty did not fall upon them as it 
did upon men. But then, if they would 
run their heads into trouble,, trouble 
came harder upon them than on men, 
and for that they had nobody to blame 
but themselves. Of course it was a very 
nice thing to be in love. Verses and 
pretty speeches and easy-spoken ro- 
mance were pleasant enough in their 
way. Parson John had no doubt tried 


them himself in early life, and had found 
how far they were efficacious for his own 
happiness. But young women were so 
apt to want too much of the excitement. 
A young man at Bullhampton was not 
enough without another young man at 
Loring. That we fear was the mode in 
which Parson John looked at the sub- 
ject ; which mode of looking at it, had 
he ever ventured to explain it to Mary 
Lowther, would have brought down upon 
his head from that young woman an 
amount of indignant scorn which would 
have been very disagreeable to Parson 
John. But then he was a great deal too 
wise to open his mind on such a subject 
to Mary Lowther. 

“ I think, sir. I’d better go up and 
see Curling again next week,” said the 
captain. 

“ I dare say. Is anything not going 
right ?” 

“ I suppose I shall get the money, 
but I shall like to know when. I am 
very anxious, of course; to fix a day for 
my marriage.” 

“ I should not be over-quick about 
that, if I were you,” said Parson John. 

“ Why not ? Situated as I am, I 
must be quick. I must make up my 
mind, at any rate, where we’re to live 
when we’re married.” 

“You’ll go back to your regiment, I 
suppose, next month ?” 

“Yes, sir. I shall go back to my 
regiment next month, unless we may 
make up our minds to go out to India.” 

“What! you and Mary?” 

“Yes, I and Mary.” 

“ As man and wife ?” said Parson 
John, with a smile. 

“ How else should we 2:0 ?” 

“Well, no. If she goes with you, 
she must go as Mrs. Captain Marrable, 
of course. But if I were you, I would 
not think of anything so horrible.” 

“ It would be horrible,” said Walter 
Marrable. 

“ I should think it would. India may 
be all very well when a man is quite 
young, and if he can keep himself from 
beer and wine ; but to go back there at 
your time of life with a wife, and to look 
forward to a dozen children there, must 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


be an unpleasant prospect, I should 
say.” Walter Marrable sat silent and 
black. “ I should give up all idea of 
India,” continued his uncle. 

“ What the deuce is a man to do ?” 
asked the captain. The parson shrugged 
his shoulders. « I’ll tell you what I 
have been thinking of,” said the captain. 
“If I could get a farm of four or five 
hundred acres — ” 

“ A farm !” exclaimed the parson. 

“ Why not a farm ? I know that a 
man can do nothing with a farm unless 
ne has capital. He should have ten or 
twelve pounds an acre for his land, I 
suppose. I should have that and some 
trifle of an income besides if I sold out. 
I suppose my uncle would let me have a 
farm under him.” 

“He w'ould see you farther first.” 

“ Why shouldn’t I do as well with a 
farm as another ?” 

“ Why not turn shoemaker ? Because 
you have not learned the business. 
Farmer, indeed ! You’d never get the 
farm, and if you did you would not keep 
it for three years. You’ve been in the 
army too long to be fit for anything else, 
Walter.” Captain Marrable looked black 
and angry at being so counseled, but he 
believed what was said to him, and had 
no answer to make to it. “You must 
stick to the army,” continued the old 
man ; “ and if you’ll take my advice, 
you’ll do so without the impediment of 
a wife.” 

“ That’s quite out of the question.” 

“ Why is it out of the question 

“ How can you ask me, Uncle John ? 
Would you have me go back from an 
engagement after I have made it ?” 

“ I would have you go back from any- 
thing that was silly.” 

“ And tell a girl after I have asked 
her to be my wife that I don’t want to 
have anything more to do with her ?” 

“ I should not tell her that, but I 
should make her understand, both for 
her own sake and for mine, that we had 
been too fast, and that the sooner we 
gave up our folly the better for both of 
us. You can’t marry her — that’s the 
truth of it.” 

“ You’ll see if I can’t.” 


91 

“If you choose to wait ten years, you 
may.” 

“ I won’t wait ten months, nor, if I 
can have my own way, ten weeks.” 
(What a pity that Mary could not have 
heard him !) “ Half the fellows in the 

army are married without anything be- 
yond their pay, and I’m to be told that 
we can’t get along with three hundred a 
year ! At any rate, we’ll try.” 

“ Marry in haste and repent at leis- 
ure,” said Uncle John. 

“ According to the doctrines that are 
going now-a-days,” said the captain, “ it 
will be held soon that a gentleman can’t 
marry unless he has got three thousand a 
year. It is the most heartless, damnable 
teaching that ever came up. It spoils 
the men, and makes women, when they 
do marry, expect ever so many things 
that they ought never to want.” 

“ And you mean to teach them better, 
Walter 

“ I mean to act for myself, and not 
be frightened out of doing what I think 
right because the world says this and 
that.” As he so spoke the angry cap- 
tain got up to leave the room. 

“All the same,” rejoined the parson, 
firing the last shot, “ I’d think twice 
about it, if I were you, before I married 
Mary Lowther.” 

“ He’s more of an ass, and twice as 
headstrong as I thought him,” said Par- 
son John to Miss Marrable the next 
day, “ but still I don’t think it will come 
to anything. As far as I can observe, 
three of these engagements are broken 
off for one that goes on. And when he 
comes to look at things, he’ll get tired 
of it. He’s going up to London next 
week, and I sha’n’t press him to come 
back. If he does come, I can’t help it 
If I were you, I wouldn’t ask him up the 
hill, and I should tell Miss Mary a bit 
of my mind pretty plainly.” 

Hitherto, as far as words went, Aunt 
Sarah had told very little of her mind to 
Mary Lowther on the subject of her en- 
gagement, but she had spoken as yet no 
word of congratulation ; and Mary knew 
that the manner in which she proposed 
to bestow herself was not received with 
favor by any of her relatives at Loring. 


TUB VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


92 

CHAPTER XXII. 

WHAT THE FENWICKS THINK ABOUT IT. 

Bullhampton unfortunately was at 
j:he end of the postman’s walk, and as 
the man came all the way from Laving- 
ton, letters were seldom received much 
before eleven o’clock. Now this was a 
most pernicious arrangement, in respect 
to which Mr. Fenwick carried on a per- 
petual feud with the Post-office authori- 
ties, having put forward a great postal 
doctrine that letters ought to be rained 
from heaven on to everybody’s break- 
fast-table exactly as the hot water was 
brought in for tea. He, being an ener- 
getic man, carried- on a long and angry 
correspondence with the authorities 
aforesaid, but the old man from Bull- 
hampton continued to toddle into the 
village just at eleven o’clock. It was 
acknowledged that ten was his time, but, 
as he argued himself, ten and eleven 
were pretty much of a muchness. The 
consequence of this was, that Mary 
Lowther’s letters to Mrs. Fenwick had- 
been read by her two or three hours be- 
fore she had an opportunity of speaking 
on the subject to her husband. At last, 
however, he returned, and she flew at 
him with a letter in her hand 

“Frank,” she said — “Frank, what do 
you think has happened ?” 

“ The Bank of England must have 
stopped, from the look of your face.” 

“ I wish it had, with all my heart, 
sooner than this. Mary has gone and 
engaged herself to her cousin Walter 
Marrable.” 

“ Mary Lowther ?” 

“Yes, Mary Lowther — our Mary. 
And from what I remember hearing 
about him, he is anything but nice.” 

“ He had a lot of money left to him 
the other day.” 

“It can’t have been much, because 
Mary owns that they will be very poor. 
Here is her letter. I am so unhappy 
about it Don’t you remember hearing 
about that Colonel Marrable who was 
in a horrible scrape about somebody’s 
wife ?” 

“You shouldn’t judge the son from 
the father.” 

“ They’ve been in the army together. 


and they’re both alike. I hate the army. 
They are almost always no better than 
they should be.” 

“ That’s true, my dear, certainly, of all 
services, unless it be the army of mar- 
tyrs ; and there may be a doubt on the 
subject even as to them. May I read it ?” 

“ Oh yes : she has been half ashamed 
of herself every word she has written. I 
know her so well. To think that Mary 
Lowther should have engaged herself to 
any man after two days’ acquaintance !” 

Mr. Fenwick read the letter through 
attentively, and then handed it back. 
“ It’s a good letter,” he said. 

“You mean that it’s well written?” 

“ I mean that it’s true. There -are no 
touches put in to make effect. She 
does love the one man, and she doesn’t 
love the other. All I can say is, that 
I’m very sorry for it. It will drive Gil- 
more out of the place.” 

“ Do you mean it 

“ I do, indeed. I never knew a man 
to be at the same time so strong and so 
weak in such a matter. One would say 
that the intensity of his affection would 
be the best pledge' of his future happi- 
ness if he were to marry the girl ; but, 
seeing that he is not to marry her, one 
cannot but feel that a man shouldn’t 
stake his happiness on a thing beyond 
his reach.” 

“You think it is all up, then — that 
she really will marry this man ?” 

“ What else can I think ?” 

“These things do go off sometimes. 
There can’t be much money, because, 
you see, old Miss MarrJile opposes the 
whole thing on account of there not 
being money enough. She is anything 
but rich herself, and is the last person 
in all the world to make a fuss about 
money. If it could be broken off — ” 

“ If I understand Mary Lowther,” 
said Mr. Fenwick, “she is not the wo- 
man to have her match broken off for 
her by any person. Of course I know 
nothing about the man, but if he is Arm, 
she’ll be as Arm.” 

“And then she has written to Mr. 
Gilmore,” said Mrs. Fenwick. 

“It’s all up with Harry, as far as this 
goes,” said Mr. Fenwick. 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


93 


The vicar had another matter of mo- 
ment to discuss with his wife. Sam 
Brattle, after having remained hard at 
work at the mill for nearly a fortnight — 
so hard at work as to induce his father 
to declare that he’d bet a guinea there 
wasn’t a man in the three parishes who 
could come nigh his Sam for a right- 
down day’s work — after all this, Sam 
had disappeared, had been gone for two 
days, and was said by the constable to 
have been seen, at night even, on the 
Devizes side, from which were supposed 
to come the Grinder and all manner of 
Grinder’s iniquities. Up to this time 
no further arrest had been made on 
account of Farmer Trumbull’s murder, 
nor had any trace been found of the 
Grinder or of that other man who had 
been his companion. The leading po- 
liceman, who still had charge of the 
case, expressed himself as sure that the 
old woman at Pycroft Common knew 
nothing of h^r son’s whereabouts ; but 
he had always declared, and still con- 
tinued to declare, that Sam Brattle could 
tell them the whole story of the murder 
if he pleased; and there had been a cer- 
tain amount of watching kept on the 
young man, much to his own disgust 
and to that of his father. Sam had 
sworn aloud in the village — so much 
aloud that he had shown his determina- 
tion to be heard by all men — that he 
would go to America, and see whether 
any one would dare to stop him. He 
had been told of his bail, and had re- 
plied that he would demand to be re- 
lieved of his^ail — that his bail was ille- 
oral, and that he would have it all tried 
in a court of law. Mr. Fenwick had 
heard of this, and had replied that as far 
as he was concerned he was not in the 
least afraid. He believed that the bail 
was illegal, and he believed also that 
Sam would stay where he was.. But 
now Sam was gone, and the Bullhamp- 
ton constable was clearly of opinion that 
he had gone tp join the Grinder. “At 
any rate; he’s off somewhere,” said Mr. 
Fenwick, “ and his mother doesn’t know 
where he’s gone. Old Brattle, of course, 
won’t say a word.” 

“ And will it hurt you ?” 


“ Not unless they get hold of those 
other fellows and require Sam’s appear- 
ance. I don’t doubt but that he’d turn 
up in that case.” 

“ Then it does not signify.” 

“It signifies for him. I’ve an idea 
that I know where he’s gone, and I think 
I shall go after him.” 

“ Is it far, Frank ?” 

“ Something short of Australia, very 
luckily.” 

“ Oh, Frank !” 

“ I tell you the truth. It’s my belief 
that Carry Brattle is living about twenty 
miles off, and that he’s gone to see his 
sister.” 

“ Carry Brattle ! — down here !” 

“ I don’t know it, and I don’t want to 
hear it mentioned ; but I fancy it is so. 
At any rate, I shall go and see.” 

“ Poor, dear, bright little Carry ! But 
how is she living, Frank?” 

“ She’s not one of the army of mar- 
tyrs, you may be sure. I dare say she’s 
no better than she should be.” 

“You’ll tell me if you see her?” 

“ Oh yes.” 

“ Shall I send her anything ?” 

“ The only thing to send her is money. 
If she is in want I’ll relieve her — with a 
very sparing nand.” 

“ Will you bring her back — here ?” 

“ Ah, who can say ? I should tell 
her mother, and I suppose we should 
have to ask her father to receive her. I 
know what his answer will be.” 

“ He’ll refuse to see her.” 

“No doubt. Then we should have to 
put our heads together, and the chances 
are that the poor girl will be off in the 
mean time — back to London and the 
devil. It is not easy to set crooked 
things straight.” 

In spite, however, of this interruption, 
Mary Lowther and her engagement to 
Captain Marrable was the subject of 
greatest interest at the vicarage that day 
and through the night. Mrs. Fenwick 
half expected that Gilmore would come 
down in the evening, but the vicar 
declared that his friend would be un- 
willing to show himself after the blow 
which he would have received. They 
knew that he would know that they had 


94 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


received the news, and that therefore he 
could not come either to tell it, or with 
the intention of asking questions with- 
out telling it. If he came at all, he must 
come like a beaten cur with his tail be- 
tween his legs. And then there arose the 
question whether it would not be better 
that Mary’s letter should be answered 
before Mr. Gilmore was seen. Mrs. 
Fenwick, whose fingers were itching for 
pen and paper, declared at last that she 
would write at once ; and did write, as 
follows, before she went to bed : 

“The Vicarage, Friday. 

“ Dearest Mary : I do not know 
how to answer your letter. You tell me to 
write pleasantly and to congratulate you ; 
but how is one to do what is so utter- 
ly in opposition to one’s own interests 
and wishes ? Oh dear ! oh dear ! how 
I do so wish you had stayed at Bull- 
hampton ! I know you will be angry 
with me for ■ saying so, but how can I 
say anything else ? I cannot picture 
you to myself going about from town 
to town and living in country-quarters. 
And as I never saw Captain Marrable 
to the best of my belief, I cannot inter- 
est myself about him as I do about one 
whom I know and love and esteem. I 
feel that this is not a nice way of writing 
to you, and indeed it would be nice if I 
could. Of course 1 wish you to be full 
of joy — of course I wish with all my 
heart that you may be happy if you mar- 
ry your cousin ; but the thing has come 
so suddenly that we cannot bring our- 
selves to look upon it as a reality.” 

(“You should speak for yourself, 
Janet,” said Mr. Fenwick, when he came 
to this part of the letter. He did not, 
however, require that the sentence should 
be altered.) 

“You talk so much of doing what is 
right ! Nobody has ever doubted that 
you were right both in morals and sen- 
timent. The only regret has been that 
such a course should be right, and that 
the other thing should be wrong. Poor 
man ! we have not seen him yet, nor 
heard from him. Frank says that he 
will take it very badly. I suppose that 
men do always get over that kind of 


thing much quicker than women do. 
Many women never can get over it at 
all ; and Harry Gilmore, though there is 
so little about him that seems to be 
soft, is in this respect more like a wo- 
man than a man. Had he been other- 
wise, and only half cared for you, and 
iisked you to be his wife as though your 
taking him was a thing he didn’t much 
care about and quite a matter of course, 
I believe you would have been up at 
Hampton Privets this moment, instead 
of going soldiering with a captain. 

“Frank bids me send you his kindest 
love and his best wishes for your ^ppi- 
ness. Those are his very words, and 
they seem to be kinder than mine. Of 
course you have my love and my best 
wishes, but I do not know how to write 
as though I could rejoice with you. Your 
husband will always be dear to us, who- 
ever he may be, if he be good to you. 
At present I feel very, very angry with 
Captain Marrable, as though I wish he 
had had his head blown off in battle. 
However, if he is to be the happy man, 
I will open my heart to him ; that is, if 
he be good. 

“ I know this is not nice, but I can- 
not make it nicer now. God bless you, 
dearest Mary ! 

“ Ever your most affectionate friend, 
“Janet Fenwick.” 

The letter was not posted till the hour 
for despatch on the following day, but 
up to that hour nothing had been seen 
at the vicarage of Mr. Gilmore. 


chapter XXIII. 

WHAT MR. GILMORE THINKS ABOUT IT. 

Mr. Gilmore was standing on the 
doorsteps of his own house when Mary’s 
letter .was brought to him. It was a 
modest-sized country gentleman’s resi- 
lience, built of variegated, uneven stones, 
black and gray and white, which seemed 
to be chiefly flint, but the corners and 
settings of the windows and of the door- 
ways and the chimneys were of brick. 
There was something sombre about it, 
and many perhaps might call it dull of 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


95 


aspect, but it was substantial, comfort- 
able and unassuming. It was entered 
by broad stone steps, with iron balus- 
trades curving outward as they descend- 
ed, and there was an open area round 
the house, showing that the offices were 
in the basement. In these days it was 
a quiet house enough, as Mr. Gilmore 
was a man not much given to the loud- 
ness of bachelor parties. He enter- 
tained his neighbors at dinner perhaps 
once a month, and occasionally had a 
few guests staying with him. His uncle, 
the prebendary from Salisbury, was often 
with him, and occasionally a brother who 
was in the army. For the present, how- 
ever, he was much more inclined, when 
in want of society, to walk off to the 
vicarage than to provide it for himself at 
home. When Mary’s letter jvas handed 
to him with his Times and other corre- 
spondence, he looked, as everybody does, 
at the address, and at once knew that it 
came from Mary Lowther. He had never 
hitherto received a letter from her, but 
yet he knew her handwriting well. With- 
out waiting a moment, he turned upon 
his heel and went back into his house, 
and through the hall to the library. 
When there he first opened three other 
letters — two from tradesmen in London, 
and one from his uncle, offering to come 
to him on the next Monday. Then he 
opened the Times^ and cut it and put it 
down on the table. Mary’s letter mean- 
while was in his hand, and any one 
standing by might have thought that he 
had forgotten it. But he had not for- 
gotten it, nor was it out of his mind for 
a moment. While looking at the other 
letters, while cutting the paper, while 
attempting, as he did, to read the news, 
he was suffering under the dread of the 
blow that was coming. He was there 
for twenty minutes before he dared to 
break the envelope ; and though during 
the whole of that time he pretended to 
deceive himself by some employment, he 
knew that he was simply postponing an 
evil thing that was coming to him. At 
last he cut the letter open, and stood for 
some moments looking for courage to 
read it. He did read it, and then sat 
himself down in his chair, telling him- 


self that the thing was over and that he 
would bear it as a man. He took up 
his newspaper and began to study it. It 
was the time of the year when news- 
papers are not very interesting, but he 
made a rush at the leading articles and 
went through two of them. Then he 
turned over to the police reports. He 
sat there for an hour, and read . hard 
during the whole time. Then he got up 
and shook himself, and knew that he 
was a crippled man, with every function 
out of order, disabled in every limb. He 
walked from the library into the hall, and 
thence to the dining-room, and so back- 
ward and forward for a quarter of an 
hour. At last he could walk no longer, 
and closing the door of the library be- 
hind him, he threw himself on a sofa and 
cried like a woman. 

What was it that he wanted, and why 
did he want it ? Were there not other 
women whom the world would say were 
as good ? Was it ever known that a 
man had died or become irretrievably 
broken and destroyed by disappointed 
love ? Was it not one of those things 
that a man should shake off from him 
and have done with it ? He asked him- 
self these and many such-like questions, 
and tried to philosophize with him- 
self on the matter. Had he no will of 
his own by which he might conquer this 
enemy ? No : he had no will of his 
own, and the enemy would not be con- 
quered. He had to tell himself that he 
was so poor a thing that he could not 
stand up against the evil that had fallen 
on him. 

He walked out round his shrubberies 
and paddocks, and tried to take an 
interest in the bullocks and the hoftes. 
He knew that if every bullock and horse 
about the place had been struck dead, it 
would not enhance his misery. He had 
not had much hope before, but now he 
would have seen the house of Hampton 
Privets in flames, just for the chance 
that had been his yesterday. It was not 
only that he wanted her, or that he re- 
gretted the absence of some recognized 
joys which she would have brought to 
him, but that the final decision on her 
part seemed to take from him all vitality. 


96 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


ail power of enjoyment, all that inward 
elasticity which is necessary for an 
intetest in worldly affairs. 

He had as yet hardly thought of any- 
thing but himself— had hardly observed 
the name of his successful rival, or paid 
any attention to aught but the fact that 
she had told him that it was all over. 
He had not attempted to make up his 
mind whether anything could still be 
done — whether he might yet have a 
chance — whether it would be well for 
him to quarrel with the man — whether 
he should be indignant with her, or re- 
monstrate once again in regard to her 
cruelty. He had thought only of the 
blow and of his inability to support it. 
Would it not be best that he should go 
forth and blow out his brains, and have 
done with it ? 

He did not look at the letter again till 
he had returned to the library. Then 
he took it from his pocket, and read it 
very carefully. Yes, she had been quick 
about it. Why, how long had it been 
since she had left their parish ? It was 
still October, and she had been there 
just before the murder — only the other 
day ! Captain Walter Marrable ! No, 
he didn’t think he had ever heard of him. 
Some fellow with a moustache and a 
military strut — just the man that he had 
always hated ; one of a class which, with 
nothing real to recommend it, is always 
interfering with the happiness of every- 
body. It was in some such light as this 
that Mr. Gilmore at present regarded 
Captain Marrable. How could such a 
man make a woman happy — a fellow who 
probably had no house nor home in 
which to make her comfortable ? Stay- 
ing with his uncle, the clergyman ! Poor 
Gilmore expressed a wish that the uncle, 
the clergyman, had been choked before 
he had entertained such a guest. Then 
he read the concluding sentence of poor 
Mary’s letter, in which she expressed a 
.hope that they might be friends ? Was 
there ever such cold-blooded trash ? 
Friends indeed! What sort of friend- 
ship could there be between two per- 
sons, one of whom had made the other 
so wretched, so dead, as was he at 
present 


For some half hour he tried to com- 
fort himself with an idea that he could 
get hold of Captain Marrable and maul 
him — that it would be a thing permis- 
sible for him, a magistrate, to go forth 
with a whip and flog the man, and then 
perhaps shoot him, because the man had 
been fortunate in love where he had been 
unfortunate. But he knew the world in 
which he lived too well to allow himself 
long to think that this could really be 
done. It might be that it was a better 
world where such revenge was practi- 
cable, but, as he well knew, it was not 
practicable now ; and if Mary Lowther 
chose to give herself to this accursed 
captain, he could not help it. There was 
nothing that he could do but to go away 
and chafe at his suffering in some part 
of the woidd in which nobody would 
know that he was chafing. 

When the evening came, and he found 
that his solitude was terribly oppressive 
to him, he thought that he would go 
down to the vicarage. He had been 
told by that false one that her tidings 
had been sent to her friend. He took 
his hat and sauntered out across the 
fields, and did walk as far as the church- 
yard gate, close to poor Mr. Trumbull’s 
farm — the very spot at which he had last 
seen Mary Lowther ; but when he was 
there he could not endure to go through 
to the vicarage. There is something 
mean to a man in the want of success 
in love. If a man lose a venture of 
money, he can tell his friend, or be un- 
successful for a seat in Parliament, or be 
thrown out of a run in the hunting-field, 
or even if he be blackballed for a club ; 
but a man can hardly bring himself to 
tell to his dearest comrade that his Mary 
has preferred another man to himself. 
This wretched fact the Fenwicks' already 
knew as to poor Gilmore’s Mary, and 
yet, though he had come down there 
hoping for some comfort, he did not dare 
to face them. He went back all alone, 
and tumbled and tossed and fretted 
through the miserable night. 

And the next morning was as bad. 
He hung about the place till ^out four, 
utterly crushed by his burden. It was 
a Saturday, and when the postman called 




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“ ‘ ]Ve knew that it would be\ hard to bear, my friend^ she said, putting her hand 
within his arm ^ — [Page 97.] 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


97 


no letter had yet been even written in 
answer to his uncle’s proposition. He 
was moping about the grounds, with his 
hands in his pockets, thinking of this, 
when suddenly Mrs. Fenwick appeared 
in the path before him. There had been 
another consultation that morning: be- 
tween herself and her husband, and this 
visit was the result of it. He dashed at 
the matter immediately. “You have 
come,” he said, “ to talk to me about 
Mary Lowther.” 

“ I have come to say a word, if I can, 
to comfort you. Frank bade me to 
come.” < 

“ There isn’t any comfort,” he replied. 

“ We knew that it would be hard to 
bear, my friend,” she said, putting her 
hand within his arm, “but there is 
comfort.” 

“ There can be none for me. I had 
set my heart upon it, so that I cannot 
forget it.” 

“ I know you had, and so had we. 
Of course there will be sorrow, but it 
will wear off.” He shook his head with- 
out speaking. “ God is too good,” she 
continued, “to let such troubles remain 
with us long.” 

“You think, then,” he said, “that 
there is no chance What could she 
say to him ? How, under the circum- 
stances of Mary’s engagement, could she 
encourage his love for her friend ? “I 
know that there is none,” he continued. 
“ I feel, Mrs. Fenwick, that I do not 
know what to do with myself or how to 
hold myself. Of course it is nonsense 
to talk about dying, but I do feel as 
though if I didn’t die I should go crazy. 
I can’t settle my mind to a single thing.” 

“It is fresh with you yet, Harry,” she 
said. She had never called him Harry 
before, though her husband did so al- 
ways, and now she used the name in 
sheer tenderness. 

“ I don’t know why such a thing 
should be different with me than with 
other people,” he said ; “ only that per- 
haps I am weaker. But I’ve known 
from the very first that I have staked 
everything upon her. I have never 
questioned to myself that I was going 
for all or nothing. I have seen it be- 


fore me all along, and now it has come. 
Oh, Mrs. Fenwick, if God would strike 
me dead this moment, it would be -a 
mercy !” And then he threw himself 
on the ground at her feet. He was not 
there a moment before he was up again. 
“If you knew how I despise myself for 
all this — how I hate myself!” 

She would not leave him, but stayed 
there till he consented to come down 
with her to the vicarage. He should 
dine there, and Frank should walk back 
with him at night. As to that question 
of Mr. Chamberlaine’s visit, respecting 
which Mrs. Fenwick did not feel herself 
competent to give advice herself, it 
should become matter of debate between 
them and Frank, and then a man and 
horse could be sent to Salisbury on Sun- 
day morning. As he walked down to 
the vicarage with that pretty woman at 
his elbow, things perhaps were a little 
better with him. ' 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE REV. HENRY FITZACKERLEY CHAMBER- 
LAINE. 

It was decided that evening at the 
vicarage that it would be better for all 
parties that the reverend uncle from 
Salisbury should be told to make his 
visit and spend the next week at Hamp- 
ton Privets : that is, that he should come 
on the Monday and stay till the Satur- 
day. The letter was written down at 
the vicarage, as Fenwick feared that it 
would jiever be written if the writing of 
it were - left to the unassisted energy of 
the squire. The letter was written, and 
the vicar, who walked back to Hampton 
Privets house with his friend, took care 
that it was given to a servant on that 
night. 

On the Sunday nothing was seen of 
Mr. Gilmore. He did not come to 
church, nor would he dine at the vicar- 
age. He remained the whole day in his 
own house, pretending to write, trying 
to write — with accounts before him, with 
a magazine in his hand, even with a vol- ' 
ume of sermons open on the table before 
him. But neither the accounts, nor the 


98 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


magazine, nor the sermons could arrest 
his attention for a moment. He had 
staked everything on obtaining a certain 
object, and that object was .now beyond 
his reach. Men fail often in other 
things — ill the pursuit of honor, fortune 
or power — and when they fail they can 
begin again. There was no beginning 
again for him. When Mary Lowther 
should have married this captain she 
would be a thing lost to him for ever ; 
and was she not as bad as married to 
this man already? He could do nothing 
to stop her marriage. 

Early in the afternoon on Monday the 
Rev. Henry Fitzackerley Chamberlaine 
reached Hampton Privets. He came 
with his own carriage and a pair of 
.post-horses, as befitted a prebendary of 
the good old times. Not that Mr. 
Chamberlaine was a very old man, but 
that it suited his tastes and tone of 
mind to adhere to the well-bred cere- 
monies of life, so many of which went 
out of fashion when railroads came in. 
Mr. Chamberlaine was a gentleman 
about fifty-five years of age, unmarried, 
possessed of a comfortable private inde- 
pendence, the incumbent of a living in 
the fens of Cambridgeshire, which he 
never visited, his health forbidding him 
to do so ; on which subject there had 
been a considerable amount of corre- 
spondence between him and a certain 
right reverend prelate, in which the pre- 
bendary had so far got the better in the 
argument as not to be disturbed in his 
manner of life ; and he was, as has been 
before said, the owner of a stall in Salis- 
bury Cathedral. His lines had certainly 
fallen to him in very pleasant places. 
As to that living in the fens, there was 
not much to prick his conscience, as he 
gave up the parsonage-house and two- 
thirds of the income to his curate : the 
other third he expended on local chari- 
ties. Perhaps the argument which had 
most weight in silencing the bishop was 
contained in a short postscript to one of 
his letters. “ By the by,” said the post- 
script, “ perhaps I ought to inform your 
brdship that I have never drawn a penny 
of income out of Hardbedloe since I 
ceased to live there.” “ It’s a bishop’s 


living,” said the happy holder of it to 
one or two clerical friends, “and Dr. 

thinks the patronage would be 

better in his hands than in mine. I 
disagree with him, and he’ll have to 
write a great many letters before he suc- 
ceeds.” But his stall was worth eight 
hundred pounds a year and a house, 
and Mr. Chamberlaine, in regard to his 
money matters, was quite in clover. 

He was a very handsome man — about 
six feet high, with large, light-gray eyes, 
a straight nose and a well-cut chin. His 
lips were thin, but his teeth were perfect, 
only that they had been supplied by a 
dentist. His gray hair encircled his 
head, coming round upon his forehead 
in little wavy curls, in a manner that had 
conquered the hearts of spinsters by the 
dozen in the cathedral. It was whisper-' 
ed, indeed, that married ladies would 
sometimes succumb, and rave about the 
beauty and the dignity and the white 
hands and the deep rolling voice of the 
■ Rev. Henry Fitzackerley Chamberlaine. 
Indeed, his voice was very fine when it 
would be heard from the far-off end of 
the choir during the communion service, 
altogether trumping the exertion of the 
other second-rate clergyman who would 
be associated with him at the altar. 
And he had, too, great gifts of preach- 
ing, which he would exercise once a 
week during thirteen ^eeks of the year. 
He never exceeded twenty-five minutes, 
every word was audible throughout the 
whole choir, and there was a grace about 
it , that was better than any doctrine. 
When he was to be heard the cathedral 
was always full, and he was perhaps 
justified in regarding himself as one of 
the ecclesiastical stars of the day. Many 
applications were made to him to preach 
here and there, but he always refused. 
Stories were told of how he had declined, 
to preach before the Queen at St. James’, 
averring that if Her Majesty would please 
to visit Salisbury, every accommodation 
should be provided for her. As to preach- 
ing at Whitehall, Westminster and St. 
Paul’s, it was not doubted that he had 
over and over again declared that his 
appointed place was in his own stall, and 
that he did not consider that he ' was 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


99 


called lo holding forth in the market- 
place. He was usually abroad during 
the early autumn months, and would 
make sundry prolonged visits to friends, 
but his only home was his prebendal 
residence in the Close. It was not 
much of a house to look at from the 
outside, being built with the plainest 
possible construction of brick, but within 
it was very pleasant. All that curtains, 
and carpets, and arm-chairs, and books, 
and ornaments could do, had been done 
lavishly, and the cellar was known to be 
the best in the city. He always used 
post-horses, but he had his own carriage. 
He never talked very much, but when 
he did speak people listened to him. 
His appetite was excellent, but he was a 
feeder not very easy to please : it was 
understood well by the ladies of Salis- 
bury that if Chamberlaine was expected 
to dinner, something special must be 
done in the way of entertainment. He 
was always exceedingly well dressed. 
What he did with his hours nobody 
knew, but he was supposed to be a man 
well educated at all points. That he was 
such a judge of all works of art that not 
another like him was to be found in 
Wiltshire, nobody doubted. It was con- 
sidered that he was almost as big as the 
bishop, and not a soul in Salisbury 
would have thought of comparing the 
dean to him. But the dean had seven 
children, and Mr. Chamberlaine was 
quite unencumbered. 

Henry Gilmore was a little afraid of 
his uncle, but would always declare that 
he was not so. « If he chooses to come 
over here, he is welcome,” the nephew 
would say ; “ but he must live just as I 
do.” Nevertheless, though there w'as 
but little left of the ’47 Lafitte in the 
cellar of Hampton Privets, a bottle was 
always brought up when Mr. Chamber- 
laine was there, and Mrs. Buncher, the 
cook, did not pretend but that she was 
in a state of dismay from the hour of 
his coming to that of his going. And 
yet Mrs. Buncher and the other servants 
liked him to be there. His presence 
honored the Privets. Even the boy 
who blacked his boots felt that he was 
blacking the boots of a great man. It 


was acknowledged throughout the house- 
hold that the squire, having such an 
uncle, was much more of a squire than 
he would have been without him. The 
clergyman, being such as he was, was 
greater than the country gentleman. And 
yet Mr. Chamberlaine was only a pre- 
bendary, was the son of a country 
clergyman who had happened to marry 
a wife with money, and had absolutely 
never done anything useful in the whole 
course of his life. It is often very curi- 
ous to trace the sources of greatness. 
With Mi:. Chamberlaine I think, it came 
from the whiteness of his hands, and 
from a certain knack he had of looking 
as though he could say a great deal, 
though it suited him better to be silent 
and say nothing. Of outside deport- 
ment no doubt he was a great master. 

Mr. Fenwick always declared that he 
was very fond of Mr. Chamberlaine, and 
greatly admired him. “ He is the most 
perfect philosopher I ever met,” Fen- 
wick would say, “and has gone to the 
very centre depth of contemplation. In 
another ten years he will be the great 
Akinetos. He will eat and drink, and 
listen, and be at ease, and desire noth- 
ing. As it is, no man that I know dis- 
turbs other people so little.” On the 
other hand, Mr. Chamberlaine did not 
profess any great admiration for Mr. 
Fenwick, whom he designated as one of 
the smart “ windbag” tribe — “ clever, no 
doubt, and perhaps conscientious, as a 
friend of his own knows, but shallow, 
and perhaps a little conceited.” The 
squire, who was not clever and not con- 
ceited, understood them both, and much 
preferred his friend the vicar to his uncle 
the prebendary. 

Gilmore had once consulted his uncle 
— once in an evil moment, as he now 
felt — whether it would not be well for 
him to marry Miss Lowther. The uncle 
had expressed himself as very adverse 
to the marriage, and would now, on this 
occasion, be sure to ask some question 
about it. When the great man arrived 
the squire w'as out, still wandering round 
among the bullocks and sheep ; but the 
evening after dinner would be very long. 
On the following day, Mr. and Mrs. 


roo 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


P'enwick, with Mr. and Mrs. Green- 
thorne, were to dine at the Privets. If 
this first evening were only through, 
Gilmore thought that he could get some 
comfort, even from his uncle. As he 
came near the house, he went into the 
yard and saw the prebendary’s grand 
carriage, which was being washed. No, 
as far as the groom knew, Mr. Chamber- 
laine had not gone out, but was in the 
house then. So Gilmore entered and 
found his uncle in the library. 

His first questions were about the 
murder. “You did catch one man and 
let him go ?” said the prebendary. 

“Yes, a tenant of mine; but there 
was no evidence against him. He was 
not the man.” 

“ I would not have let him go,” said 
Mr. Chamberlaine. 

“ You would not have kept a man that 
was innocent ?” said Gilmore. 

“ I would not have let the young man 

go.” 

“ But the law would not support us in 
detaining him.” 

“Nevertheless, T would not have let 
him go,” said Mr. Chamberlaine. “ I 
heard all about it.” 

“ From whom did you hear ?” 

“From Lord Trowbridge. I certainly 
would not have let him go.” » It ap- 
peared, however, that Lord Trowbridge’s 
opinion had been given to the preben- 
dary prior to that fatal meeting which 
had taken place in the house of the mur- 
dered man. 

The uncle drank his claret in silence 
on’ this evening. He said nothing, at 
least, about Mary Lowther. “ I don’t 
know where you got it, Harry, but that 
is not a very bad glass of wine.” 

“ We think there’s none better in the 
country, sir,” said Harry. 

“ I should be very sorry to commit 
myself so far, but it is a good glass of 
wine. By the by, I hope your chef has 
learned to make a cup of coffee since I 
was here in the spring. I think we’ll 
try it now.” The coffee was brought, 
and the prebendary shook his head — the 
least shake in the world — and smiled 
blandly. 

“ Coffee is the very devil in the coun- 


try,” said Harry Gilmore, who did not 
dare to say that the mixture was good 
in opposition to his uncle’s opinion. 

After the coffee, which was served in 
the library, the two men sat silent to- 
gether for half an hour, and Gilmore was 
endeavoring to think what it was that 
made his uncle come to Bullhampton. 
At last, before he had arrived at any de- 
cision on this subject, there came first a 
little nod, then a start and a sweet smile, 
then another nod and a start without the 
smile, and after that a soft murmuring 
of a musical snore, which gradually in- 
creased in deepness till it became evi- 
dent that the prebendary was extremely 
happy. Then it occurred to Gilmore 
that perhaps Mr. Chamberlaine might 
have become tired of going to sleep in his 
own house, and that he had come to the 
Privets, as he could not snore with com- 
fortable self-satisfaction in the houses of 
indifferent friends. For the benefit of 
such a change it might perhaps be worth 
the 'great man’s while to undergo the 
penalty of a bad cup of coffee. 

And could not he, too, go to sleep — 
he, Gilmore ? Could he not fall asleep 
— not only for a few moments on such 
an occasion as this — but altogether, after 
the Akinetos fashion, as explained by 
his friend Fenwick? Could he not be- 
come an immovable one, "as was this 
divine uncle of his ? No Mary Lowther 
had ever disturbed that man’s happiness. 
A good dinner, a pretty ring, an easy-chair, 
a china tea-cup might all be procured 
with certainty, as long as money lasted. 
Here was a man before him superbly com- 
fortable, absolutely happy, with no greater 
suffering than what might come to him 
from a chance cup of bad coffee, while 
he, Harry Gilmore himself, was as mis- 
erable a devil as might be found between 
the four seas, because a certain young 
woman wouldn’t come to him and take 
half of all that he owned ! If there 
were any curative philosophy to be found, 
why could not he find it ? The world 
might say that the philosophy was a low 
philosophy ; but what did that matter if 
it would take away out of his breast that 
horrid load which was more than he 
could bear ? He declared to himsell 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


lOI 


that he would sell his heart with all its 
privileges for half a farthing, if he could 
find anybody to take it .with all its bur- 
den. Here, then, was a man who had 
no burden. He was snoring with almost 
harmonious cadence — slowly, discreetly, 
one might say artistically — quite like a 
gentleman ; and the man who so snored 
could not but be happy. “ Oh, d — n 
it !” said Gilmore, in a private whisper, 
getting up and leaving the room, but 
there was more of envy than of anger in 
the exclamation. 

“ Ah ! you’ve been out,” said Mr. 
Chamberlaine when his nephew returned. 

« Been to look at the horses made 
up.” 

“ I never can see the use of that, but 
I believe a great many men do it. I 
suppose it’s an excuse for smoking gen- 
erally.” Now, Mr. Chamberlaine did not 
smoke. 

“ Well ! I did light my pipe.” 

“ There’s not the slightest necessity 
for telling me so, Harry. Let us see if 
Mrs. Buncher’s tea is better than her 
coffee.” Then the bell was rung, and 
Mr. Chamberlaine desired that he might 
have a cup of black tea, not strong, but 
made with a good deal of tea and poured 
out rapidly, without much decoction. 
“If it be strong and harsh I can’t sleep 
a wink,” he said. The tea was brought, 
and sipped very leisurely. There was 
then a word or two said about certain 
German baths, from which Mr. Cham- 
berlaine had just returned ; and Mr. 
Gilmore began to believe that he should 
not be asked to say anything about 
Mary Lowther that night. 

But the Fates were not so kind. The 
prebendary had arisen with the intention 
o'f retiring for the night, and was already 
standing before the fire, with his bed- 
room candle in his hand, when some- 
thing — the happiness probably of his 
own position in life, which allowed him 
to seek the blessings of an undivided 
couch — brought to his memory the fact 
that his nephew had spoken to him 
about some young woman — some young 
woman who had possessed not even the 
merit of a dowry. “ By the by,” said 
he, “ what has become of that flame of 
8 


yours, Harry ?” Harry Gilmore became 
black and glum. He did not like to 
hear Mary spoken of as a flame. He 
was standing at this moment with his 
back to his uncle, and so remained with- 
out answering him. “ Do you mean to 
say that you did ask her after all ?” 
asked the uncle. “ If there be any 
scrape, Harry, you had better let me 
hear it.” 

“ I don’t know what you call a scrape,” 
said Harry. “ She’s not going to marry 
me.” 

“ Thank God, my boy !” Gilmore 
turned round, but his uncle did nqt prob- 
ably see his face. “ I can assure you,” 
continued Mr. Chamberlaine, “that the 
idea made me quite uncomfortable. I 
set some inquiries on foot, and she was 
not the sort of girl that you should 
marry.” 

“By G — ,” said Gilmore, “I’d give 
every acre I have in the world, and 
every shilling, and every friend, and 
twenty years of my life, if I could only 
be allowed at this moment to think it 
possible that she would ever marry me !” 

“ Good heavens !” said Mr. Chamber- 
laine. While he was saying it Harry 
Gilmore walked off, and did not show 
himself to his uncle again that night. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

CARRY BRATTLE. 

On the day after the dinner-party at 
Hampton Privets, Mr. Fenwick made 
his little excursion out in the direction 
toward Devizes of which he had spoken 
to his wife. The dinner went off very 
quietly, and there was considerable im- 
provement in the coffee. There was 
some gentle sparring between the two 
clergymen, if that can be called sparring 
in which all the active pugnacity was on 
one side. Mr. Fenwick endeavored to 
entrap Mr. Chamberlaine into arguments, 
but the prebendary escaped with a degree 
of skill— without the shame of sullen re- 
fusal — that excited the admiration of 
Mr. Fenwick’s wife. “After all, he is a 
clever man,” she said, as she went home, 
“ or he could never slip about as he does, 


102 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON, 


like an eel, and that with so very little 
motion.” 

On the next morning the vicar started 
alone in his gig. He had at first said 
that he would take with him a nonde- 
script boy, who was partly groom, partly 
gardener and partly shoeblack, and who 
consequently did half the work of the 
house, but at last he decided that he 
would go alone. “ Peter is very silent, 
and most meritoriously uninterested in 
everything,” he said to his wife. “ He 
wouldn’t tell much, but even he might 
tell something.” So he got himself into 
his gig and drove off alone. He took 
the Devizes road, and passed through 
Lavington without asking a question ; 
but when he was halfway between that 
place and Devizes, he stopped his horse 
at a lane that led away to the right. He 
had been on the road before, but he did 
not know that lane. He waited a while 
till an old woman whom he saw coming 
to him reached him, and asked her 
whether the lane would take him across 
to the Marlborough road. The old wo- 
man knew nothing of the Marlborough 
road, and looked as though she had 
never heard of Marlborough. Then he 
asked the way to Pycroft Common. 
Yes, the lane would take him to Pycroft 
Common. Would it take him to the 
Bald-faced Stag ? The old woman said 
it would take him to Rump-end Corner, 
“but she didn’t know nowt of t’other 
place.” He took the lane, however, and 
without much difficulty made his way to 
the Bald-faced Stag, which in the days 
of the glory of that branch of the West- 
ern Road used to supply beer to at least 
a dozen coaches a day, but which now, 
alas ! could slocken no drowth but that 
of the rural aborigines. At the Bald- 
faced Stag, however, he found that he 
could get a feed of corn, and here he put 
up his horse, and saw that the corn was 
eaten. 

Pycroft Common was a mile from him, 
and to Pycroft Common he walked. He 
took the road toward Marlborough for 
half a mile, and then broke off across 
the open ground to the left. There was 
no difficulty in finding this place, and 
now it was his object to discover the 


cottage of Mrs. Burrows without asking 
the neighbors for her by name. He had 
obtained a certain amount of information, 
and thought that he could do it. He 
walked on to the middle of the common, 
and looked for his points of bearing.’ 
There was the beer-house, and there 
was the road that led away to Pewsey. 
and there were the two brick cottages 
standing together. Mrs. Burrows lived 
in the little white cottage just behind. 
He walked straight up to the door, be- 
tween the sunflowers and the rosebush, 
and, pausing for a few moments to think 
whether or no he would enter the cottage 
unannounced, he knocked at the door. 
A policeman would have entered without 
notice, and so would a poacher knock 
over a hare on its form ; but whatever 
creature a gentleman or a sportsman he 
hunting, he will always give it a chance. 
He rapped, and immediately heard that 
there w^ere sounds within. He rapped 
again, and in about a minute was told to 
enter. Then he opened the door and 
found but one person within. It was a 
young woman, and he stood for a mo- 
ment looking at her before he spoke. 

“ Carry Brattle,” he said, “ I am glad 
that I have found you.” 

“Laws, Mr. Fenwick !” 

“ Carry, I am so glad to see you !” 
and then he put out his hand to her. 

“Oh, Mr. Fenwick, I ain’t fit for the 
likes of you to touch,” she said. But as 
his hand was still stretched out she put 
her own into it, and he held it in his 
grasp for a few seconds. She was a 
poor, sickly-looking thing now, but there 
were the remains of great beauty in the 
face — or rather the presence of beauty — 
but of beauty obscured by flushes of 
riotous living and periods of want, by 
ill-health, harsh usage, and, worst of all, 
by the sharp agonies of an intermitting 
conscience. It was a pale, gentle face, 
on which there were still streaks of pink : 
a soft, laughing face it had been once," 
and still there was a gleam of light in the 
eyes that told of past merriment, and 
almost promised mirth to come, if only 
some great evil might be cured. Her 
long flaxen curls still hung down her 
face, but they were larger, and, as Fen- 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


103 


wick thought, more tawdry, than of yore ; 
and her cheeks were thin and her eyes 
were hollow ; and then there had come 
across her mouth that look of boldness 
which the use of bad, sharp words, half 
wicked and half witty, will always give. 
.She was dressed decently, and was sitting 
in a low chair, with a torn, disreputable- 
looking old novel in her hand. Fenwick 
knew that the book had been taken up 
on the spur of the moment, as there had 
certainly been some one there when he 
had knocked at the door. 

And yet, though vice had laid its heavy 
hand upon her, the glory and the bright- 
ness and the sweet outward flavor of in- 
nocence had not altogether departed from 
her. Though her mouth was bold, her 
eyes were soft and womanly, and she 
looked up into the face of the clergy- 
man with a gentle, tamed, beseeching 
gaze, which softened and won his heart 
at once. Not that his heart had ever 
been hard against her. Perhaps it was 
a fault with him that he never hard- 
ened his heart against a sinner, unless 
the sin implied pretence and falsehood. 
At this moment, remembering the little 
Carry Brattle of old, who had sometimes 
been so sweetly obedient and sometimes 
so willful under his hands — whom he 
had petted and caressed and scolded and 
loved — whom he had loved, undoubtedly 
in part, because she had been so pretty 
— whom he had hoped that he might 
live to marry to some good farmer, in 
whose kitchen he would ever be wel- 
come, and whose children he would 
christen, — remembering all this, he would 
now, , at this moment, have taken her in 
his arms and embraced her if he dared, 
showing her that he did not account her 
to be vile, begging her to become more 
good, and planning some course for her 
future life. 

“ I have come across from Bullhamp- 
ton. Carry, to And you,” he said. 

« It’s a poor place you’re come to, 
Mr. FenwicL I suppose tlie police told 
you of my being here.” 

“ I had heard of it. Tell me. Carry, 
what do you know of Sam ?” 

“ Of Sam ?” 

“Yes — of Sam. Don’t, tell me an 


untruth. You need tell me nothing, you 
know, unless you like. I don’t come to 
ask as having any authority, only as a 
friend of his and of yours.” 

She paused a moment before she re- 
plied. “ Sam hasn’t done any harm to 
nobody,” she said. 

“ I don’t say he has. I only want to 
know where he is. You can understand, 
Carry, that it would be best that he 
should be at home.” 

She paused again, and then she blurt- 
ed out her answer : “ He went out o’ 
that back door, Mr. Fenwick, when you 
came in at t’other.” 

The vicar immediately went to the 
back door, but Sam, of course, was not 
to be seen. 

“ Why should he be hiding if he has 
done no harm ?” said the vicar. 

“ He thought it was one of them po- 
lice. They do be coming here a’most 
every day, till one’s heart faints at see- 
ing ’em. I’d go away if I’d e’er a place 
to go to.” 

“ Have you no place at home. Carry ?” 

“ No, sir — no place.” 

This was so true that he couldn’t tell 
himself why he had asked .the question. 
She certainly had no place at home till 
her father’s heart should be changed to- 
ward her. 

“Carry,” said he, speaking very slowly, 
“ they tell me that you are married. Is 
that true ?” She made him no answer. 
“ I wish you would tell me, if you can. 
The state of a married woman is honest, 
at any rate, let her husband be who he 
may.” 

“ My state is not honest.” 

“You are not married, then ?” 

“ No, sir.” 

He hardly knew how to go on with 
his interrogations, or to ask questions 
about her past and present life, without 
expressing a degree of censure which, at 
any rate for the present, he wished to 
repress. 

“You are living here, I believe, with 
old Mrs. Burrows ?” he said. 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ 1 was told that you were married to 
her son.” 

“ They told you untrue, sir. I know 


104 


TH^ VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


nothhig of her son, except just to have 
sea’d him.” 

‘•Is that true, Carry ?” 

“ It is true. It wasn’t he at all.” 

“ Who was it. Carry ?” 

“ Not her son ; but what does it sig- 
nify ? He’s gone away, and I shall see 
’un no more. He wasn’t no good, Mr. 
Fenwick, and if you please we won’t talk 
about ’un.” 

“ He was not your husband 

“No, Mr. Fenwick; I never had a 
husband, nor never shall, I suppose. 
What man would take the likes of me 1 
I have just got one thing to do, and that’s 
all.” 

“ What thing is that. Carry ?” 

“To die and have done with it,” 
she said, bursting out into loud sobs. 
“ What’s the use o’ living ? Nobody ’ll 
see me or speak to me. Ain’t I just so 
bad that they’d hang me if they knew 
how to catch me ?” 

“ What do you mean, girl said 
Fenwick, thinking for the moment that 
from her words she too might have had 
some part in the murder. 

“Ain’t the police coming hereafter 
me a’most every day ? And when they 
hauls about the place and me too, what 
can I say to ’em .? I have got that low 
that a’most everybody can say what they 
please to me. And where can I go out 
o’ this ? I don’t want to be living here 
always with that old woman.” 

“ Who is the old woman, Carry ?” 

“ I suppose you knows, Mr. Fenwick.” 

“ Mrs. Burrows, is it She nodded 
her head. “ She is the mother of the 
man they call the Grinder Again she 
nodded her head. “It is he whom they 
accuse of the murder.^” Yet again she 
nodded her head. “ There was another 
man ?” She nodded it again. “ And 
they say that there was a third,” he said 
— “your brother Sam ?” 

“ Then they lie !” she shouted, jump- 
ing up from her seat. “ They lie like 
devils. They are devils ; and they’ll go 
— oh down into the fiery furnace for ever 
and ever !” 

In spite of the tragedy of the mo- 
ment, Mr. Fenwick could not help join- 
ing this terribly earnest threat and the 


Marquis of Trowbridge together in his 
imagination. 

“ Sam hadn’t no more to do with it 
than you had, Mr. Fenwick.” 

“ I don’t believe he had,” said Mr. 
Fenwick. 

“Yes — because you’re good and kind, 
and don’t think ill of poor folk when 
they’re a bit down. But as for them, 
they’re devils.” 

“ I did not come here, however, to 
talk about the murder. Carry. If I 
thought you knew who did it, I shouldn’t 
ask you. That is business for the po- 
lice, not for me. I came here partly to 
look after Sam. He ought to be at 
home. Why has he left his home and 
his work while his name is thus in peo- 
ple’s mouths ?” ^ 

“ It ain’t for me to answer for him, 
Mr. Fenwick. Let ’em say what they 
will, they can’t make the white of his 
eye black. But as for me, I ain’t no 
business to speak of nobody. How 
should I know why he comes and why 
he goes 1 If I said as how he’d come 
to see his sister, it wouldn’t sound true, 
would it, sir, she being what she is ?” 

He got up and went to the front door, 
and opened it and looked about him. 
But he was looking for nothing. His 
eyes were full of tears, and he didn’t 
care to wipe the drops away in her pres- 
ence. “ Carry,” he said, coming back 
to her, “it wasn’t all for him that I 
came.” 

“ For who else, then ?” 

“ Do you remember how we loved 
you when you were young. Carry ? Do 
you remember my wife, and how, you 
used to come and play with the children 
on the lawn ? Do you remember. Carry, 
when you sat in church, and the singing, 
and what trouble we had together with 
the chants ? There are one or two at 
Bullhampton who never will forget it.” 

“ Nobody loves me now,” she said, 
talking at him over her shoulder, which 
was turned to him. 

He thought for a moment that he 
would tell her that the Lord loved her ; 
but there was something human at his 
heart — something perhaps too human — 
which made him feel that were he down 


/ 



“ ‘ Carry' he said, coming back 


to her, '‘it ivasn't all for him that I came .' " — 
[Page 104.] rt 



THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


105 


low upon the ground, some love that 
was nearer to him, some love that was 
more easily intelligible, which had been 
more palpably felt, would in his frailty 
and his wickedness be of more imme- 
diate avail to him than the love even of 
the Lord God. 

“ Wh} should you think that, Carry ?” 
he said. 

“ Because I’m bad.” 

“ If we were to love only the good, 
we should love very few. I love you, 
Carry, truly. My wife loves you dearly.” 

“ Does she ?” said the girl, breaking 
into low sobs. “ No, she doesn’t : I 
know she doesn’t. The likes of her 
couldn’t love the likes of me. She 
wouldn’t speak to me. She wouldn’t 
touch me.” 

“ Come and try. Carry.” 

“Father would kill me,” she said. 

“ Your father is full of wrath, no doubt. 
You have done that which must make a 
father angry.” 

“Oh, Mr. Fenwick, I wouldn’t dare 
to stand before his eye for a minute. 
The sound of his voice would kill me 
straight. How could I go back ?” 

“It isn’t easy to make crooked things 
straight, Carry, but we may try ; and 
they do become straighter if one tries in 
earnest. Will you answer me one ques- 
tion more.” 

“Anything about myself, Mr. Fen- 
wick.” 

“ Are you living in sin now. Carry ?” 
She sat silent — not that she would not 
answer him, but that she did not com- 
prehend the extent of the meaning of 
his question. “ If it be so, and if you 
will not abandon it, no honest person 
can love you. You must change your- 
self, and then you will be loved.” 

“ I have got the money which he gave 
me, if you mean that,” she said. 

Then he asked no further questions 
about herself, but reverted to the subject 
of her brother. Could she bring him in 
to say a few words to his old friend ? 
But she declared that he was gone, and 
that she did not know whither — that he 
might probably return this very day to 
the mill, having told her that it was 
his purpose to do so soon. When he 


expressed a hope that he held no con- 
sort with those bad men who had mur- 
dered and robbed Mr. Trumbull, she 
answered him with such naive assurance 
that any such consorting was quite out 
of the question, that he became at once 
convinced that the murderers were far 
away, and that she knew that such was 
the case. As far as he could learn from 
her, Sam had really been over to Pycroft 
with the view of seeing his sister, taking 
probably a holiday of a day or two on 
the way. Then he again reverted to 
herself, having, as he thought, obtained 
a favorable answer to that vital question 
which he had asked her. 

“ Have you nothing to ask of your 
mother ?” he said. 

“ Sam has told me of her and of Fan.” 

“ And would you not care to see 
her ?” 

“Care, Mr. Fenwick! Wouldn’t I 
give my eyes to see her? But how can 
I see her ? And what could she say to 
me ? Father ’d kill her if she spoke to 
me. Sometimes I think I’ll walk there 
all the day, and so get there at night, 
and just look about the old place, only I 
know I’d drown myself in the mill- 
stream. I^wish I had. I wish it was 
done. I’ve seed an old poem in which 
they thought much of a poor girl after 
she was drowned, though nobody 
wouldn’t think nothing at all about her 
before.” 

“Don’t drown yourself, Carry, and 
I’ll care for you. Keep your hands 
clean — you know what I mean — and I 
will not rest till I find some spot for 
your weary feet. Will you promise me ?” 
She made him no answer. “ I will not - 
ask you for a spoken promise, but make 
it to yourself, Carry, and ask God to 
help you to keep it. Do you say your 
prayers, Carry?” 

“ Never a prayer, sir.” 

“But you don’t forget them? You 
can begin again. And now I must ask 
for a promise. If I send for you, will 
you come ?” 

“ What — to Bullhampton ?” 

“ Whencesoever I may send for you ? 
Do you think that I would have you 
harmed ?” 


io6 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


“ Perhaps :t’d be for a prison, or to 
live along with a lot of others. Oh, Mr; 
Fenwick, I could not stand that.” 

He did not dare to proceed any 
farther, lest he should be tempted to 
make promises which he himself could 
not perform ; but she did give him an 
assurance before he went that if she left 
her present abode within a month, she 
would let him know whither she was 
going. 

He went to the Bald-faced Stag and 
got his gig, and on his way home, just 
as he was leaving the village of Laving- 
ton, he overtook Sam Brattle. He 
stopped and spoke to the lad, asking 
him whether he was returning home, 
and offering him a seat in the gig. Sam 
declined the seat, but said that he was 
going straight to the mill. 

“It is very hard to make crooked 
things straight,” said Mr. Fenwick to 
himself, as he drove up to his own hall 
door. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE TURNOVER CORRESPONDENCE. 

It is hoped that the reader will re- 
member that the Marquis of Trowbridge 
was subjected to very great insolence 
from Mr. Fenwick during the discussion 
which took place in poor old Farmer 
Trumbull’s parlor respecting the mur- 
der. Our friend, the vicar, did not con- 
tent himself with personal invective, but 
made allusion to the marquis’ daughters. 
The marquis, as he, was driven home in 
his carriage, came to sundry conclusions 
about Mr. Fenwick. That the man was 
an infidel he had now no matter of doubt 
whatever ; and if an infidel, then also a 
hypocrite, and a liar, and a traitor, and 
a thief. Was he not robbing the parish 
of the tithes, and all the while entrapping 
the souls of men and women ? Was it 
not to be expected that with such a pas- 
tor there should be such as Sam Brattle 
and Carry Brattle in the parish ? It was 
true that as yet this full-blown iniquity 
had spread itself only among the com- 
paratively small number of tenants be- 
longing to the objectionable “ person ” 


who unfortunately owned a small num- 
ber of acres in his lordship’s parish : 
but his lordship’s tenant had been mur- 
dered ! And with such a pastor in the 
parish, and such an objectionable person 
owning acres to back the pastor, might 
it not be expected that all his tenants 
would be murdered ? Many applications 
had already been made to the marquis 
for the Church Farm ; but as it hap- 
pened that the applicant whom the mar- 
quis intended to favor had declared that 
he did not wish to live in the house be- 
cause of the murder, the marquis felt him- 
self justified in concluding that if every- 
thing about the parish was not changed 
very shortly, no decent person would be 
found willing to live in any of his houses. 
And now, when they had been talking of 
murderers and worse than murderers — 
as the marquis said to himself, shaking 
his head' with horror in the carriage as 
he thought of such iniquity — this infidel 
clergyman had dared to allude to his 
lordship’s daughters ! Such a man had 
no right even to think of women so 
exalted. The existence of the Ladies 
Stowte must no doubt be known to such 
men, and among themselves probably 
some allusion in the way of faint guesses 
might be made as to their modes of life, 
as men guess at kings’ and queens’, and 
even at gods’ and goddesses’. But to 
have an illustration, and a very base 
illustration, drawn from his own daugh- 
ters in his own presence, made with the 
object of confuting himself — this was 
more than the marquis- could endure. 
He could not horsewhip Mr. Fenwick, 
nor could he send out his retainers to 
do so ; but, thank God, there was a 
bishop ! He did not quite see his way, 
but he thought that Mr. Fenwick might 
be made at least to leave that parish. 
“ Turn my daughters out of my house, 
because — Oh, oh !” He almost put 
his fist through the carriage window in 
the energy of his action as he thought 
of it. 

As it happened, the Marquis of Trow- 
bridge had never sat in the House of 
Commons, but he had a son who 
sat there now. Lord St. George was 
member for another county, in which 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


107 


Lord Trowbridge had an estate, and was 
a man of the world. His father admired 
him much, and trusted him a good deal, 
but still he had an idea that his son 
hardly estimated in the proper light the 
position in the world which he was called 
to fill. Lord St. George was now at 
home at the castle, and in the course of 
that evening the father, as a matter of 
course, consulted the son. He consid- 
ered that it would be his duty to write 
to the bishop, but he would like to hear 
St. George’s idea on the subject. He 
began, of course, by saying that he did 
not doubt but that Sf. George would 
agree with him. 

“ I shouldn’t make any fuss about it,” 
said the son. 

“ What ! pass it over ?” 

“ Yes ; I think so.” 

“ Do you understand the kind of allu- 
sion that was made to your sisters ?” 

“ It won’t hurt them, my lord ; and 
people make allusion to everything now- 
a-days. The bishop can’t do anything. 
For aught you know, he and Fenwick 
may be bosom friends. 

“ The bishop, St. George, is a most 
right-thinking man.” 

“No doubt. The bishops, I believe, 
are all right-thinking men, and it is well 
for them that they are so very seldom 
called on to go beyond thinking. No 
doubt he’ll think that this fellow was 
indiscreet, but he can’t go beyond think- 
ing. You’ll only be raising a blister for 
yourself.” 

“ Raising a what ?” 

“A blister, my lord. The longer I 
live the more convinced I become that 
a man shouldn’t keep his own sores 
open.” 

There was something in the tone of 
his son’s conversation which pained the 
marquis much, but his son was known 
to be a wise and prudent man, and one 
who was rising in the political world. 
The marquis sighed and shook his head, 
and murmured something as to the duty 
which lay upon the great to bear the 
troubles incident to their greatness ; by 
which he meant that sores and blisters 
should be kept open if the exigencies of 
rank so required. But he ended the 


discussion at last by declaring that he 
would rest upon the matter for forty- 
eight hours. Unfortunately, before those 
forty-eight hours were over. Lord St. 
George had gone from Turnover Castle, 
and the marquis was left to his own 
lights. In the mean time, the father 
and son and one or two friends had been 
shooting over at Bullhampton ; so that 
no farther steps of warfare had been 
taken when Mr. and Mrs. Fenwick met 
the marquis on the pathway. 

On the following day his lordship sat 
in his own private room thinking of his 
grievance. He had thought of it and of 
little else for now nearly sixty hours. 
“ Suggest to me to turn out my daugh- 
ters ! Heaven and earth ! my daugh- 
ters !” He was well aware that, though 
he and his son often differed, he could 
never so safely keep himself out of 
trouble as by following his son’s advice. 
But surely this was a matter per se — 
standing altogether on its own bottom ; 
very different from those ordinary details 
of life on which he and his son were 
wont to disagree. His daughters ! The 
Ladies Sophie and Caroline Stowte ! It 
had been suggested to him to turn them 
out of his house because — Oh ! oh ! 
The insult was so great that no human 
marquis could stand it. He longed to 
be writing a letter to the bishop : he was 
proud of his letters. Pen and paper 
were at hand, and he did write : 

“Right Rev. and Dear Lord Bishop: 

“ I think it right to represent to your 
lordship the conduct — I believe I may 
be justified in saying the misconduct — 

of the Reverend Fenwick, the 

vicar of Bullhampton.” (He knew our 
friend’s Christian name very well, but he 
did not choose to have it appear that his 
august memory had been laden with a 
thing so trifling.) “You may have heard 
that there has been a most horrid mur- 
der committed in the parish on one of 
my tenants, and that suspicion is rife 
that the murder was committed in part 
by a young man, the son of a miller who 
lives under a person who owns some 
land in the parish. The family is very 
bad, one of the daughters being, as I 


io8 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


understand, a prostitute. The other day 
1 thought it right to visit the parish with 
the view of preventing, if possible, the 
sojourn there among my people of these 
objectionable characters. When there I 
was encountered by Mr. Fenwick, not 
only in a most unchristian spirit, but in 
a bearing so little gentlemanlike that I 
cannot describe it to you. He had ob- 
truded himself into my presence, into one 
of my own houses, the very house of the 
murdered man ; and then, when I was 
consulting with the person to whom I 
have alluded as to the expediency of 
ridding ourselves of these objectionable 
characters, he met me with ribaldry and 
personal insolence. When I tell your 
lordship that he made insinuations about 
my own daughters so gross that I can- 
not repeat them to you, I am sure that 
I need go no farther. There were 
present at this meeting Mr. Puddleham, 
the Methodist minister, and Mr. Henry 
Gilmore, the landlord of the persons in 
question. 

“Your lordship has probably heard 
the character, in a religious point of view, 
of this gentleman. It is not for me to 
express an opinion of the motives which 
can induce such a one to retain his 
position as an incumbent of a parish. 
But I do believe that I have a right 
to ask your lordship for some inquiry 
into the scene which I have attempted 
to describe, and to expect some protec- 
tion for the future. I do not for a mo- 
ment doubt that your lordship will do 
what is right in the matter. 

“ I have the honor to be. Right Rev- 
erend and dear Lord Bishop, your most 
obedient and faithful servant, 

“ Trowbridge.” 

He read this over thrice, and became 
so much in love with the composition 
that on the third reading he had not the 
slightest doubt as to the expediency of 
sending: it. Nor had he much doubt 
but that the bishop would do something 
to Mr. Fenwick which would make the 
parish too hot to hold that disgrace to 
the Church of England. 

When Fenwick came home from 
Pycroft Common, he found a letter from 


the bishop awaiting him. He had driven 
forty miles on that day, and was rather 
late for dinner. His wife, however, 
came up stairs with him in order that 
she might hear something of his story, 
and brought his letters with her. He 
did not open that from the bishop till he 
was half dressed, and then burst out 
into loud laughter as he read it. 

“What is it, Frank?” asked Mrs. 
Fenwick, through the open door of her 
own room. 

“ Here’s such a game !” said he. 
“Never mind: let’s have dinner, and 
then you shall see it.” 

The reader, however, may be quite 
sure that Mrs. Fenwick did not wait till 
dinner was served before she knew the 
nature of the game. 

The bishop’s letter to the vicar was 
very short and very rational, and it was 
not that which made the vicar laugh ; 
but inside the bishop’s letter was that 
from the marquis. “ My dear Mr. Fen- 
wick,” said the bishop, “after a good 
deal of consideration, I have determined 
to send you the enclosed. I do so be- 
cause I have made it a rule never to re- 
ceive an accusation against one of my 
clergy without sending it to the person 
accused. You will, of course, perceive 
that it alludes to some matter which 
lies outside of my control and right of 
inquiry ; but perhaps you will allow me, 
as a friend, to suggest to you that it is 
always well for a parish clergyman to 
avoid controversy and quarrel with his 
neighbors, and that it is especially ex- 
pedient that he should be on good terms 
with those who have influence in his 
parjsh. Perhaps you will forgive me if 
I add that a spirit of pugnacity, though 
no doubt it may lead to much that is 
good, has its bad tendencies if not 
watched closely. 

“ Pray remember that Lord Trow- 
bridge is a worthy man, doing his duty 
on the whole well, and that his position, 
though it be entitled to no veneration, is 
entitled to much respect. If you can 
tell me that you will feel no grudge 
against him for what has taken place, I 
shall be very happy. 

“You will observe that I have been 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


109 


careful that this letter shall have no 
official character. 

“Yours, very faithfully, 

» “&c., &c., &c.” 

The letter was answered that evening, 
but before the answer was written the 
Marquis of Trowbridge was discussed 
between the husband and wife, not in 
complimentary terms. Mrs. Fenwick on 
the occasion was more pugnacious than 
her husband. She could not forgive the 
man who had hinted to the bishop that 
her husband held his living from un- 
worthy motives, and that he was a bad 
clergyman. 

“My dear girl,” said Fenwick, “what 
can you expect from an ass but his ears V* 

“ I don’t expect downright slander 
from such a man as the Marquis of 
Trowbridge, and if I were you I should 
tell the bishop so.” 

“ I shall tell him nothing of the kind. 
I shall write about the marquis with the 
kindliest feelings.” 

“ But you don’t feel kindly ?” 

“Yes I do. The poor old idiot has 
nobody to keep him right, and does the 
best he can, according to his lights. I 
have no doubt he thinks that I am every- 
thing that is horrid. I am not a bit 
angry with him, and would be as civil to 
him to-morrow as my nature would allow 
me, if he would only be civil to me.” 

Then he wrote his letter, which will 
complete the correspondence, and which 
he dated for the following day : 

“ Bullhampton Vicarage, Oct. 23, 1868. 
“ My Dear Lord Bishop : 

“ I return the marquis’ letter with 
many thanks. I can assure you that I 
take in proper spirit your little hints as 
to my pugnacity of disposition, and will 
endeavor to profit by them. My wife 
tells me that I am given to combative- 
ness, and I have no doubt that she is 
right. 

“As to Lord Trowbridge, I can as- 
sure your lordship that I will not bear 
any malice against him, or even think ill 
of him because of his complaint. He 
and I probably differ in opinion about 
almost everything, and he is one of those 
who pity the condition of all who are so 


blinded as to differ from them. The 
next time that I am thrown into his 
company I shall act exactly as though 
no such letter had been written, and as 
if no such meeting had taken place as 
that which he describes. 

“ I hope I may be allowed to assure 
your lordship, without any reference to 
my motives for keeping it, that I shall 
be very slow to give up a living in your 
.lordship’s diocese. As your letter to 
me is unofficial — and I thank you heart- 
ily for sending it in such form — I have 
ventured to reply in the same strain. 

“ I am, my dear Lord Bishop, 

“Your very faithful servant, 

“F'rancis Fenwick.” 

“ There !” said he, as he folded it and 
handed it to his wife. “ I shall never 
see the remainder of the series. I 
would give a shilling to know how the 
bishop gets out of it in writing to the 
marquis, and half a crown to see the 
marquis’ rejoinder.” The reader shall 
be troubled with neither, as he would 
hardly prize them so highly as did the 
vicar. The bishojj’s letter really con- 
tained little beyond an assurance on his 
part that Mr. Fenwick had not meant 
anything wrong, and that the matter was 
one with which he, the bishop, had no 
concern ; all of which was worded with 
most complete episcopal courtesy. The 
rejoinder of the marquis was long, elab- 
orate and very pompous. He did not 
exactly scold the bishop, but he express- 
ed very plainly his opinion that the 
Church of England was going to the 
dogs, because a bishop had not the power 
of utterly abolishing any clergyman who 
might be guilty of an offence against so 
distinguished a person as the Marquis 
of Trowbridge. 

But what was to be done about Carry 
Brattle? Mrs. Fenwick, when she had 
expressed her anger against the marquis, 
was quite ready to own that the matter 
of Carry’s position was to them of much 
greater moment than the wrath of the 
peer. How were they to put out their 
hands and save that brand from the 
burning ? Fenwick, in his ill-considered 
zeal, suggested that she might be brought 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


1 10 

to the vicarage, but his wife at once 
knew that such a step would be danger- 
ous in every way. “ How could she 
live and what would she do ? and what 
would the other servants' think' of it ?” 

“ Why would the other servants mind 
it?” asked Fenwick. But his wife on 
such a matter could have a way of her 
own, and that project was soon knocked 
on the head. No doubt her father’s 
house was the proper place for her, but 
then her father was so dour a man. 

“ Upon my word,” said the vicar, “he 
is the only person in the world of whom 
I believe myself to be afraid. When I 
get at him I do not speak to him as I 
would to another ; and of course he 
knows it.” 

Nevertheless, if anything was to be 
done for Carry Brattle, it seemed as 
though it must be done by her father’s 
permission and assistance. 

“ There can be no doubt that it is his 
duty,” said Mrs. Fenwick. 

“ I will not say that as a certainty,” 
said the husband. There is a point at 
which, I presume, a father may be jus- 
tified in disowning a child. The pos- 
session of such a power, no doubt, keeps 
others from going wrong. What one 


wants is, that a father should be pre- 
sumed to have the power, but that when 
the time comes he should never use it. 
It is the comfortable doctrine which we 
are all of us teaching — wrath and abom- 
ination of the sinner before the sin, par- 
don and love after it. If you were to 
run away from me, Janet — ” 

“Frank, do not dare to speak of any- 
thing so horrible.” 

“ I should say now probably that were 
you to do so, I would never blast my 
eyes by looking at you again, but I know 
that I should run after you and implore 
you to come back to me.” 

“You wouldn’t do anything of the 
kind, and it isn’t proper to talk about it ; 
and I shall go to bed.” 

“ It is very difficult to make crooked 
things straight,” said the vicar, as he 
walked about the room after his wife 
had left him. “ I suppose she ought to 
go into a reformatory. But I know she 
wouldn’t, and I shouldn’t like to ask her 
after what she said.” 

It is probably the case that Mr. Fen- 
wick would have been able to do his 
duty better had some harsher feeling to- 
ward the sinner been mixed with his 
charity. 



PART IV. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

“I NEVER SHAMED NONE OF THEM.” 

S OMETHING must be done about 
Carry Brattle at once. The vicar 
felt that he had pledged himself to take 
some steps for her welfare, and it seemed 
to him, as he thought of the matter, that 
there were only two steps possible. He 
might intercede with her father, or he 
might use his influence to have her re- 
ceived into some house of correction, 
some retreat, in which she might be 
kept from evil and disciplined for good. 
He knew that the latter would be the 
safer place, if it could be brought to 
bear, and it certainly would be the 
easier for himself. But he thought that 
he had almost pledged himself to the 
girl not to attempt it, and he felt sure 
that she would not accede to it. In his 
doubt he went up to his friend Gilmore, 
intending to obtain the light of his 
friend’s wisdom. He found the squire 
and the prebendary together, and at 
once started his subject. 

“You’ll do no good, Mr. Fenwick,” 
said Mr. Chamberlaine, after the two 
younger men had been discussing the 
matter for half an hour. 


“ Do you mean that I ought not to 
try to do any good ?” 

“ I mean that such efforts never come 
to anything.” 

“ All the unfortunate creatures in the 
world, then, should be lefi to go to de- 
struction in their own way.” 

“It is useless, I think, to treat special 
cases in an exceptional manner. When 
such is done it is done from enthusiasm, 
and enthusiasm is never useful.” 

“ What ought a man to do, then, for 
the assistance of such fellow-creatures 
as this poor girl ?” asked the vicar. 

“ There are penitentiaries and reform- 
atories, and it is well, no doubt, to sub- 
scribe to them,” said the prebendary. 
“ The subject is so full of difficulty that 
one should not touch it rashly. Henry, 
where is the last Quarterly 

“ I never take it, sir.” 

“ I ought to have remembered,” said 
Mr. Chamberlaine, smiling blandly. 
Then he took up the Saturday Review^ 
and endeavored to content himself with 
that. 

Gilmore and Fenwick walked down 
to the mill together, it being understood 
that the squire was not to show himself 
there. Fenwick’s very difficult task, if it 



II2 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


were to be done at all, must be done by 
himself alone. He must beard the lion 
in his den and make the attack without 
any assistant. Gilmore had, upon the 
whole, been disposed to think that no 
such attack should be made. “ He’ll 
only turn upon you with violence, and 
no good will be done,” said he. “ He 
can’t eat me,” Fenwick had replied, 
acknowledging, however, that he ap- 
proached the undertaking with fear and 
trembling. Before they were far from 
the house, Gilmore had changed the 
conversation and fallen back upon his 
own sorrows. He had not answered 
Mary’s letter, and now declared that he 
did not intend to do so. What could 
he say to her 1 He could not write and 
profess friendship ; he could not offer 
her his congratulations ; he could not 
belie his heart by affecting indifference. 
She had thrown him over, and now he 
knew it. Of what use would it be to 
write to her and tell her that she had 
made him miserable for ever ? “I shall 
break up the house and get away,” said 
he. 

“ Don’t do that rashly, Harry. There 
can be no spot in the world in which you 
can be so useful as you are here.” 

“ All my usefulness has been dragged 
out of me. I don’t care about the place 
or about the people. I am ill already, 
and shall become worse. I think I will 
go abroad for four or five years. I’ve an 
idea I shall go to the States.” 

“You’ll become tired of that, I should 
think.” 

“ Of course I shall. Everything is 
tiresome to me. I don’t think anything 
else can be so tiresome as my uncle, 
and yet I dread his leaving me — when 
I shall be alone. I suppose if one was 
out among the Rocky Mountains, one 
wouldn’t think so much about it.” 

“ Atra Cara sits behind the horseman,” 
said the vicar. “ I don’t know that 
traveling will do it. One thing certain- 
ly will do it.” 

“ And what is that ?” 

“ Hard work. Some doctor told his 
patient that if he’d live on half a crown 
a day and earn it, he’d soon be well. 
I’m sure that the same prescription holds 


good for all maladies of the mind. You 
can’t earn the half a crown a day, but 
you may work as hard as though you 
did.” 

“ What shall I do ?” 

“ Read, dig, shoot, look after the farm 
and say your prayers. Don’t allow your- 
self time for thinking.” 

“ It’s a fine philosophy,” said Gil- 
more, “ but I don’t think any man ever 
made himself happy by it. I’ll leave 
you now.” 

“ I’d go and dig if I were you,” said 
the vicar. 

“Perhaps I will. Do you know, I’ve 
half an idea that I’ll go to Loring.” 

“ What good will that do 

“ I’ll find out whether this man is a 
blackguard. I believe he is. My uncle 
knows something about his father, and 
says that a bigger scamp never lived.” 

“ I don’t see what good you can do, 
Harry,” said the vicar. And so they 
parted. 

Fenwick was about half a mile from 
the mill when Gilmore left him, and he 
wished that it were a mile and a half. 
He knew well that an edict had gone 
forth at the mill that no one should speak 
to the old man about his daughter. 
With the mother the vicar had often 
spoken of her lost child, and had learned 
from her how sad it was to her that she 
could never dare to mention Carry’s name 
to her husband. He had cursed his 
child, and had sworn that she should 
never more have part in him or his. 
She had brought sorrow and shame upon 
him, and he had cut her off with a steady 
resolve that there should be no weak 
backsliding on his part. Those who 
knew him best declared that the miller 
would certainly keep his word, and hith- 
erto no one had dared to speak of the 
lost one in her father’s hearing. All 
this Mr. Fenwick knew, and he knew 
also that the man was one who could be 
very fierce in his anger. He had told 
his wife that old Brattle was the only 
man in the world before whom he would 
be afraid to speak his mind openly, and 
in so saying he had expressed a feeling 
that was very general throughout all 
Bullhampton. Mr. Puddleham was a 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


very meddlesome sort of man, and he had 
once ventured out to the mill to say a 
word, not indeed about Carry, but touch- 
ing some youthful iniquity of which Sam 
was supposed to have been guilty. He 
never went near the mill again, but would 
shudder and lift up his hands and his 
eyes when the miller’s name was men- 
tioned. It was not that Brattle used 
rough language or became violently angry 
when accosted ; but there was a sullen 
sternness about the man, and a capabil- 
ity of asserting his own mastery and per- 
sonal authority, which reduced those 
who attacked him to the condition of 
vanquished combatants, and repulsed 
them so that they would retreat as beat- 
en dogs. Mr. Fenwick, indeed, had 
always been well received at the mill. 
The women of the family loved him 
dearly and took great comfort in his 
visits. From his first arrival in the par- 
ish he had been on intimate terms with 
them, though the old man had never 
once entered his church. Brattle himself 
would bear with him more kindly than 
he would with his own landlord, who 
might at any day have turned him out 
of his holding. But even he had been 
so answered more than once as to have 
been forced to retreat with that feeling 
of having his tail, like a cur, between his 
legs. « He can’t eat me,” he said to 
himself, as the low willows round the 
mill came in sight. When a man is re- 
duced to that consolation, as many a 
man often is, he may be nearly sure that 
he will be eaten. 

When he got over the stile into the 
lane close to the mill door, he found that 
the mill was going. Gilmore had told 
him that it might probably be so, as he 
had heard that the repairs were nearly 
finished. Fenwick was sure that after 
so long a period of enforced idleness 
Brattle would be in the mill, but he 
went at first into the house, and there 
found Mrs. Brattle and Fanny. Even 
with them he hardly felt himself to be 
at home, but after a while managed to 
ask a few questions about Sam. Sam 
had come back and was now at work, 
V)ut he had had some terribly hard words 
with his father. The old man had de- 


III 

sired to know where his son had been 
Sam had declined to tell, and had de- 
clared that if he was to be cross-ques- 
tioned about his comings and goings, 
he would leave the mill altogether. His 
father had told him that he had better 
go. Sam had not gone, but the two had 
been working on together since without 
interchanging a word. “ I want to see 
him especially,” said Mr. Fenwick. 

“You. mean Sam, sir?” asked the 
mother. 

“No — his father. I will go out into 
the lane, and perhaps Fanny will ask 
him to come to me.” Mrs. Brattle im- 
mediately became dismayed by a troop 
of fears, and looked up into his face with 
soft, supplicating, tearful eyes, so much 
of sorrow had come to her of late. 

“ There is nothing wrong, Mrs. Brattle,” 
he said. ' 

“ I thought perhaps you had heard 
something of Sam.” 

“Nothing but what has made me 
surer than ever that he had no part in 
what was done at Mr. Trumbull’s farm.” 

“ Thank God for that !” said the 
mother, taking him by the hand. Then 
Fanny went into the mill, and the vicar 
followed her out of the house on to the 
lane. 

He stood leaning against a tree till 
the old man came to him. He then 
shook the miller’s hand and made some 
remark about the mill. They had be- 
gun again that morning, the miller said. 
Sam had been off again, or they might 
have been at work on yesterday fore- 
noon. 

“ Do not be angry with him ; he has 
been on a good work,” said the vicar. 

“ Good or bad, I know nowt of it,” 
said the miller. 

“ I know, and if you wish I will tell 
you ; but there is another thing I must 
say first. Come a little way down the 
lane with me, Mr. Brattle.” 

The vicar had assumed a tone which 
was almost one of rebuke — not intending 
it, but falling into it from want of his- 
trionic power in his attempt to be bold 
and solemn at the same time. The 
miller at once resented it. 

“Why should I come down the lane?” - 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


114 

said he. “You’re axing me to come 
out at a very busy moment, Muster 
Fenwick.” 

“ Nothing can be so important as that 
which I have to say. For the love of 
God, Mr. Brattle, for the love you bear 
your wife and children, endure with me 
for ten minutes.” Then he paused and 
walked on, and Mr. Brattle was still at 
his elbow. “ My friend, I have seen 
your daughter.” 

“ Which daughter ?” said the miller, 
arresting his step. 

“Your daughter Carry, Mr. Brattle.” 
Then the old man turned round and 
would have hurried back to the mill 
without a word, but the vicar held him 
by his coat. “ If I have ever been a 
friend to you or yours, listen to me now 
one minute.” 

“ Do I come to your house and tell 
you of your sorrows and your shame ? 
Let me go !” 

“ Mr. Brattle, if you will stretch forth 
your hand you may save her. She is 
your own child — your flesh and blood. 
Think how easy it is for a poor girl to 
fall — how great is the temptation and 
how quick, and how it comes without 
knowledge of the evil that is to follow. 
How small is the sin, and how terrible 
the punishment ! Your friends, Mr. 
Brattle, have forgiven you worse sins 
than ever she has committed.” 

“ I never shamed none of them,” said 
he, struggling on his way back to the 
mill. 

“ It is that, then — your own misfor- 
tune and not the girl’s sin that would 
harden your heart against your own 
child ? You will let her perish in the 
streets — not because she has fallen, but 
because she has hurt you in her fall! Is 
that to be a father Is that to be a 
man? Mr. Brattle, think better of your- 
self, and dare to obey the instincts of 
your heart.” 

But by this time he had escaped and 
was striding oflf in furious silence to the 
mill. The vicar, oppressed by a sense 
of utter failure, feeling that his inter- 
ference had been absolutely valueless — 
that the man’s wrath and constancy 
were things altogether beyond his reach 


— stood where he had been left, haroly 
daring to return to the mj]! and say a 
word or two to the women there. But 
at last he did go back. He knew well 
that Brattle himself would not be seen 
in the house till his present mood was 
over. After any encounter of words he 
would go and work in silence for half a 
day, and would seldom or never refer 
again to what had taken place. He 
would never, so thought th^ vicar, refer 
to the encounter which haq just taken 
place ; but he would remember it always, 
and it might be that he would never 
again speak in friendship a man who 
had offended him so deeply. 

After a moment’s thought he deter- 
mined to tell the wife, and informed her 
and Fanny that he had seen Carry over 
at Pycroft Common. The mother’s 
questions as to what her child was 
doing, how she was living, whether she 
were ill or well, and, alas ! whether she 
were happy or miserable, who cannot 
imagine ? 

“ She is anything but happy^ I fear,” 
said Mr. Fenwick. 

“ My poor Carry I” 

“ I should not wish that she should 
be happy till she be brought back to the 
decencies of life. What si all we do to 
bring her back ?” 

“ Would she come if shej were let to 
come asked Fanny. 

“ I believe she would. I /feel sure that 
she would.” 

“And what did he sa}^^ Mr. Fen- 
wick ?” asked the mother. The vicar 
only shook his head. 

“He’s very good— to mg he’s ever 
been good as gold — but olj^ Mr. Fen- 
wick, he is so hard.” 

“ He will not let you spe^xk of her ?” 

“Never a word, Mr. FeiVwick. He’d 
look at you, sir, so that the gleam of his 
eyes would fall on you likt^ a blow. I 
wouldn’t dare ; nor yet wou Mn’t Fanny, 
who dares more with him than any of 
us.” 

“If it’d serve her I’d s speak,” said 
Fanny. 

“But couldn’t I see her Mr. Fen- 
wick ? Couldn’t you take m ,e in the gig 
with you, sir? I’d slip out arter break- 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


fast up to the road, and he wouldn’t be 
no wiser — at least till I war back again. 
He wouldn’t ax no questions then, I’m 
thinking. Would he, Fan?’’ * 

“ He’d ask at dinner, but if I said you 
were out for the day along with Mr. 
Fenwick, he wouldn’t say any more, 
maybe. He’d know well enough where 
you was gone to.” 

Mr. Fenwick said that he would think 
of it, and let Fanny know on the follow- 
ing Sunday. He could not make a 
promise now, and at any rate he would 
not go before Sunday. He did not like 
to pledge himself suddenly to such an 
adventure, knowing that it would be best 
that he shouM first have his wife’s ideas 
on the matter. Then he took his leave, 
and as he went out of the house he saw 
the miller standing at the door of the 
mill. He raised his hand and said, 
“ Good-bye,” but the miller quickly 
turned his back to him and retreated 
into his mill. , 

As he walked up to his house through 
the village he met Mr. Puddleham. “ So 
Sam Brattle' is off'again, sir,” said the 
ministen*‘‘ ’ - 

“Off what, Mr. Puddleham?” 

“ Gone clean away. Out of the 
country.” 

“Who has told you that, Mr. Pud- 
dleham ?” 

“ Isn’t it true, sir ? , You ought to 
know, Mr. Fenwick, as you’re one of 
the bailsmen.” 

“ I’ve just been at the mill, and I 
didn’t see him.” 

“ I don’t think you’ll ever see him at 
the mill again, Mr. Fenwick ; nor yet in 
Bullhaj-npton, unless the people have to 
bring him here.” 

“As I was saying, I didn’t see him 
at the mill, Mr. Puddleham, because I 
didn’t go in. But he’s working there at 
this moment, and has been all the day. 
He’s all right, Mr. Puddleham. You go 
and have a few words with him or with 
his father, and you’ll find they’re quite 
comfortable at the mill now.” 

“ Constable* Hicks tolfi me that he 
was out of the country,” said Mr. Pud- 
dleham, walking away in considerable 
dissfust. 

^ 9 


115 

Mrs. Fenwick’s opinion was, upon the 
whole, rather in favor of the second ex- 
pedition to Pycroft Common : as she 
declared, the mother should at any rate 
be allowed to see her child. She indeed 
would not submit to the idea of the 
miller’s indomitable powers. If she 
were Mrs. Brattle, she said, she’d pull 
the old man’s ears and make him give 
way. 

“ You go and try,” said the vicar. 

On the Sunday morning following, 
Fanny was told that on Wednesday Mr. 
Fenwick would drive her mother over 
to Pycroft Common. He had no doubt, 
he said, but that Carry would still be 
found living with Mrs. Burrows. He 
explained that the old woman had luckily 
been absent during his visit, but would 
probably be there when they went again. 
As. to that, they must take their chance. 
And the whole plan was arranged : Mr. 
Fenwick was to be on the road in his 
gig at Mr. Gilmore’s gate at ten o’clock, 
and Mrs. Bratfle was to meet him there 
at that hour. . . 


« 

Chapter xxviii. 

MRS. brattle’s journey. 

Mrs. Brattle was waiting at the 
stile opposite to Mr. Gilmore’s gate as 
Mr. Fenwick drove up to the spot. No 
doubt the dear old woman had been there 
for the last half hour, thinking that the 
walk would take her twice as long as it 
did, and fearing that she might keep the 
vicar waiting. She had put on her Sun- 
day clothes and her Sunday bonnet, but 
when she climbed up into the vacant 
place beside her friend, she found her 
position to be so strange that for a while 
she could hardly speak. He said a few 
words to her, but pressed her with no 
questions, understanding the cause of 
her embarrassment. He could not but 
think that of all his parishioners no two 
were so 'unlike each other as were the 
miller and his wife. The one was so 
hard and invincible — the other so soft 
and submissive ! Nevertheless it had 
always been said that Brattle had been 
a tender and affectionate husband. By 


ii6 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


degrees the woman’s' awe at the horse 
and gig and strangeness of her position 
wore off, and she began to talk of her 
daughter. She had brought a little bun- 
dle with her, thinking that she might 
supply feminine wants, and had apolo- 
gized humbly for venturing to come so 
laden. Fenwick, who remembered what 
Carry had said about money that she still 
had, and who was nearly sure that the 
murderers had gone to Pycroft Common 
after the murder had been committed, 
had found a difficulty in explaining to 
Mrs. Brattle that her child was probably 
not in want. The son had been accused 
of the murder of the man, and now the 
vicar had but little doubt that the 
daughter was living on the proceeds of 
the robbery. 

“ It’s a hard life she must be living, 
Mr. Fenwick, with an old ’ooman the 
likes of that,” said Mrs. Brattle. “ Per- 
haps if I’d brought a morsel of some’at 
to eat — ” 

“ I don’t think they’re pressed in that 
way, Mrs. Brattle.” 

“Ain’t they now? But it’s a’most 
worse, Mr. Fenwick, when one thinks 
where it’s to come from. The Lord have 
mercy on her, and bring her out of it !” 

“ Amen,” said the vicar. 

“ And is she bright at all, and simple 
still ? She was the brightest, simplest 
lass in all Bull’umpton, I used to think. 
I suppose her old ways have a’most left 
her, Mr. Fenwick?” 

“ I thought her very like what she 
used to be.” 

“’Deed now, did you, Mr. P'enwick ? 
And she wasn’t mopish and slatternly- 
like ?” 

“ She was tidy enough. You wouldn’t 
wish me to say that she was happy ?” 

“I suppose not, Mr. Fenwick. I 
shouldn’t ought — ought I, now ? But, 
Mr. Fenwick, I’d give my left hand she 
should be happy and gay once more. I 
suppose none bu^a mother feels it, but 
the sound of her voice through the house 
was ever the sweetest music I know’d 
on. It’ll never have the same ring again, 
Mr. Fenwick.” 

He could not tell her that it would. 
That sajnted sinner of whom he had re- 


minded Mr. Puddleham — though she had 
attained to the joy of the Lord — even she 
had never regained the mirth of her 
young innocence. There is a bldom on 
the flower which may rest there till the 
flower has utterly perished if the hand- 
ling of it be sufficiently delicate ; but no 
care, nothing that can be done by friends 
on earth, or even by better friendship 
from above, can replace that when once 
displaced. The sound of which the 
mother was thinking could never be 
heard again from Carry Brattle’s voice. 
“ If we could only get her home once 
more,” said the vicar, “she might be a 
good daughter to you still.” 

“ Pd be a good mother to her, Mr. 
Fenwick, but I’m thinking he’ll never 
have it so. I never knew him to change 
on a thing like that, Mr. Fenwick. He 
felt it that keenly it nigh killed ’im. 
Only that he took it out o’ hisself in 
thrashing that wicked man, I a’most 
think he’d ha’ died o’ it.” 

Again the vicar drove to the Bald- 
faced Stag, and again he walked along 
the road and over the common. He 
offered his arm to the old woman, but 
she wouldn’t accept it ; nor would she 
upon any entreaty allow him to carry 
her bundle. She assured him that his 
doing so would make her utterly wretch- 
ed, and at last he gave up the point. 
She declared that she suffered nothing 
from fatigue, and that her two miles’ 
walk would not be more than her Sun- 
day journey to church and back. But 
as she drew near to the house she be- 
came uneasy, and once asked to be 
allowed to pause for a moment. “ May- 
be, then,” said she, “after all, my girl’d 
rather that I wouldn’t trouble her.” He 
took her by the arm and led her along, 
and comforted her, assuring her that if 
she would take her child in her arms. 
Carry would for the moment be in a 
heaven of happiness. “Take her into 
my arms, Mr. Fenwick? Why, isn’t 
she in my very heart of hearts at this 
moment ? And I won’t say not a 
word sharp tocher — not now, Mr. Fen- 
wick. And why would I say sharp 
words at all ? I suppose she under- 
stands it all.” 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


“ I think she does, Mrs. Brattle.” 

They had now reached the door, and 
the vicar knocked. No answer came at 
once, but such had been the case when 
he knocked before. He had learned to 
understand that in such a household it 
might not be wise to admit all comerj}* 
without consideration. So he knocked 
again, and then again. But still there 
came no answer. Then he tried the door, 
and found that it was locked. “ Maybe 
she’s seen me coming,” said the mother, 
“ and now she won’t let me in.” The 
vicar then went round the cottage and 
found that the back door also was closed. 
Then he looked in at one of the front 
windows, and became aware that no one 
was sitting, at least, in the kitchen. 
There was an up-stairs room, but of that 
the window was closed. 

“ I begin to fear,” he said, « that 
neither of them is at home.” 

At this moment he heard the voice of 
a woman calling to him from the door of 
the nearest cottage — one of the two brick 
tenements which stood together — and 
from her learned that Mrs. Burrows had 
gone into Devizes, and would not prob- 
ably be home till the evening. Then he 
asked after Carry, not mentioning her 
name, but speaking of her as the young 
woman who lived with Mrs. Burrows. 
“ Her young man come and took her 
up to Lon’on o’ Saturday,” said the 
woman. 

Fenwick heard the words, but Mrs. 
Brattle did not hear them. It did not 
occur to him not to believe the woman’s 
statement, and all his hopes about the 
poor creature were at once dashed to 
the ground. His first feeling was no 
doubt one of resentment that she had 
broken her word to him. She had said 
that she would not go within a month 
without letting him know that she was 
going; and there is no fault, novice, 
that strikes any of us so strongly as 
falsehood or injustice against ourselves. 
And then the nature of the statement 
was so terrible ! She had gone back 
into utter degradation and iniquity. And 
who was the young man t As far as he 
could obtain a clew through the informa- 
tion which had reached him from various 


117 

sources, this young man must be the 
companion of the Grinder in the murdev 
and robbery of Mr. Trumbull. “ She 
has gone away, Mrs. Brattle,” said he, 
with as sad a voice as ever a man used. 

“And where be she gone to, Mr. 
Fenwick? Cannot I go arter her?” He 
simply shook his head, and took her by 
the arm to lead her away. “ Do they 
know nothing of her, Mr. Fenwick ?” 

“ She has gone away — probably to 
London. We must think no more abcut 
her, Mrs. Brattle — at any rate for the 
present. I can only say that I am very, 
very sorry that I brought you here.” 

The drive back to Bullhampton was 
very silent and very sad. Mrs. Brattle 
had before her the difficulty of explain- 
ing her journey to her husband, together 
with the feeling that the difficulty had 
been incurred altogether for nothing. 
As for Fenwick, he was angry with him- 
self for his own past enthusiasm about 
the girl. After all, Mr. Chamberlaine 
had shown himself to be the wiser man 
of the two. He had declared it to be no 
good to take up special cases, and the 
vicar as he drove himself home notified to 
himself his assent to the prebendary’s 
doctrine. The girl had gone off the mo- 
ment she had ascertained that her friends 
were aware of her presence and situation. 
What to her had been the kindness of 
her clerical friend, or the stories brought 
to her from her early home, or the dirt 
and squalor of the life which she was 
leading? The moment that there was a 
question of bringing her back to the 
decencies of the world, she escaped 
from her friends and hurried back to the 
pollution which, no doubt, had charms 
for her. He had allowed himself to 
think that in spite of her impurity she 
might again be almost pure, and this was 
his reward ! He deposited the poor 
woman at the spot at which he had 
taken her up, almost without a word, 
and then drove himself home with a 
heavy heart. “ I believe it will be best 
to be like her father, and never to name 
her again,” said he to his wife. 

“But what has she done, Frank?”, 

“ Gone back to the life which I sup- 
pose she likes best. Let us say no more 


ii8 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


about it — at any rate for the present. I’m 
sick at heart when I think of it.” 

Mrs. Brattle, when she got over the 
stile close to her own home, saw her 
husband standing at the mill door. Her 
heart sank within her, if that could be 
said to sink which was already so low. 
He did not move, but stood there with 
his eyes fixed upon her. She had hoped 
that she might get into the house unob- 
served by him and learn from Fanny 
what had taken place, but she felt so 
like a culprit that she hardly dared to 
enter the door. Would it not be best 
to go to him at once and ask his pardon 
for what she had done ? When he spoke 
to her, which he did at last, his voice was 
a relief to her. “ Where hast been, 
Maggie ?” he asked. She went up to 
him, put her hand on the lappet of his 
coat and shook her head. “ Best go in 
and sit easy and bear what God sends,” 
he said. “ What’s the use of scouring 
about the country here and there ?” 

“ There has been no use in it to-day, 
feyther,” she said. 

“ There arn’t no use in it — not never,” 
he said ; and after that there was no 
more about it. She went into the house 
and handed the bundle to Fanny, and sat 
down on the bed and cried. 

On the following morning Frank Fen- 
wick received the following letter : 

“ London, ’Sunday. 

“ Honored Sir : 

“ I told you that I would write if it 
came as I was going away, but I’ve been 
forced to go without writing. There was 
nothing to write with at the cottage. 
Mrs. Burrows and me had words, and I 
thought as she would rob me, and per- 
haps worse. She is a bad woman, and 
I could stand it no longer; so I just 
come up here, as there was nowhere else 
for me to find a place to lie down in. I 
thought I’d just write and tell you, be- 
cause of my word ; but I know it isn’t 
no use. 

“ I’d send my respects and love to 
father and mother, if I dared. I did 
think of going over ; but I know he’d 
kill me, and so he ought. I’d send my 
respects to Mrs. Fenwick, only that I 


isn’t fit to name her ; — and my love to 
sister Fanny. I’ve come away here, and 
must just wait till I die. 

“Yours humbly, and most unfortu- 
nate, Carry. 

“ If it’s any good to be sorry, nobody 
can be more sorry than me, and nobody 
more unhappy. I did try to pray when 
you was gone, but it only made me mor^ 
ashamed. If there was only anywhere 
to go to, I’d go.” 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE BULL AT LORING. 

Gilmore had told his friend that he 
would do two things — that he W'ould 
start off and travel for four or five years, 
and that he would pay a visit to Loring. 
h'enwick had advised him to do neither, 
but to stay at home and dig and say his 
prayers. But in such emergencies no 
man takes his friend’s advice ; and when 
Mr. Chamberlaine had left him, Gilmore 
had made up his mind that he would at 
any rate go to Loring. He went to 
church on the Sunday morning, and was 
half resolved to tell Mrs. Fenwick of his 
purpose ; but chance delayed her in the 
church, and he sauntered away home 
without having mentioned it. He let 
half the next week pass by without stir- 
ring beyond his own grounds. During 
those three days he changed his mind 
half a dozen times ; but at last, on the 
Thursday, he had his portmanteau pack- 
ed and started on his journey. As he 
was preparing to leave the house he 
wrote one line to Fenwick in pencil: “I 
am this moment off to Loring. — H. G.” 
This he left in the village as he drove 
through to the Westbury station. 

He had formed no idea in his own 
mind of any definite purpose in going. 
He did not know what he should do or 
what say when he got to Loring. He 
had told himself a hundred times that 
any persecution of the girl on his part 
would be mean and unworthy of him. 
And he was also aware that no condi- 
tion in which a man could place himself 
was more open to contempt than that of 
a whining, pining, unsuccessful lover. 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON, 


179 


A man is bound to take a woman’s de- 
cision against him, bear it as he may, 
and say as little against it as possible. 
He is bound to do so when he is con- 
vinced that a woman’s decision is final ; 
and there can be no stronger proof of 
such finality than the fact that she has 
declared a preference for some other 
man. All this Gilmore knew, but he 
would not divest himself of the idea that 
there might still be some turn in the 
wheel of fortune. He had heard a vague 
rumor that Captain Marrable, his rival, 
was a very dangerous man. His uncle 
was quite sure that the captain’s father 
was thoroughly bad, and had thrown out 
hints against the son, which Gilmore in 
his anxiety magnified till he felt con- 
vinced that the girl whom he loved with 
all his heart was going to throw herself 
into the arms of a thorough scamp. 
Could he not do something — if not for 
his own sake, then for hers 1 Might it 
not be possible for him. to deliver her 
from danger ? What if he should dis- 
cover some great iniquity? — would she 
not then in her gratitude be softened to- 
ward him ? It was on the cards that 
this reprobate was married already, and 
was about to commit bigamy. It was 
quite probable that such a man should 
be deeply in debt. As for the fortune 
that had been left to him, Mr. Chamber- 
laine had already ascertained that that 
amounted to nothing. It had been con- 
sumed to the last shilling in paying the 
joint debts of the father and son. Men 
such as Mr. Chamberlaine have sources 
of information which are marvelous to 
the minds of those who are more se- 
cluded, and not the less marvelous be- 
cause the information is invariably false. 
Gilmore in this way almost came to a 
conviction that Mary Lowther was about 
to sacrifice herself to a man utterly un- 
worthy of her, and he taught himself not 
to think — but to believe it to be possi- 
ble — that he might save her. Those 
who knew him would have said that he 
was the last man in the world to be 
carried away by a romantic notion ; but 
he had his own idea of romance as 
plainly developed in his mind as was 
ever the case with a knight of old who 


went forth for the relief of a distressed 
damsel. If he could do anything to- 
ward saving her, he would do it, or try 
to do it, though he should be brought to 
ruin in the attempt. Might it not be 
that at last he would have the reward 
which other knights always attained ? 
The chance in his favor was doubtless 
small, but the world was nothing to him 
without this chance. 

He had never been at Loring before, 
but he had learned the way. He went 
to Chippenham and Swindon, and then 
by the train to Loring. He had no very 
definite plan formed for himself. He 
rather thought that he would call at Miss 
Marrable’s house — call if possible when( 
Mary Lowther was not there — and learn 
from the elder lady something of the 
facts of the case. He had been well 
aware for many weeks past, from earlj 
days in the summer, that old Miss Mar 
rable had been in favor of his claim. 
He had heard, too, that there had beei 
family quarrels among the Marrables 
and a word had been dropped in hii 
hearing by Mrs. Fenwick which had im- 
plied that Miss Marrable was by n 
means pleased with the match which he 
niece Mary Lowther was proposing t ■ 
herself. Everything seemed to sho 
that Captain Marrable was a most unde- 
sirable person. 

When he reached the station at 
Loring, it was incumbent on him to go 
somewhither at once. He must provide 
for himself for the night. He found two 
omnibuses at the station, and two inn- 
servants competing with great ardor for 
his carpet-bag. There were the Dragon 
and the Bull fighting for him. The Bull 
in the Lowtown was commercial and 
prosperous. The Dragon at Uphill was 
aristocratic, devoted to county purposes, 
and rather hard set to keep its jaws 
open and its tail flying. Prosperity is 
always becoming more prosperous, and 
the allurements of the Bull prevailed. 

“ Are you a-going to rob the gent of his 
walise ?” said the indignant Boots of the 
Bull as he rescued Mr. Gilmore’s pro- 
perty from the hands of his natural ene- 
my, as soon as he had secured the en-* 
trance of Mr. Gilmore into his own 


120 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


vehicle. Had Mr. Gilmore known that 
the Dragon was next door but one to 
Miss Marrable’s house, and that the 
Bull was nearly equally contiguous to 
that^n which Captain Marrable was re- 
siding, his choice probably would not 
have been altered. In such cases the 
knight who is to be the deliverer desires 
above all things that he may be near to 
his enemy. 

He was shown up to a bed-room, 
ajid then ushered into the commercial 
room of the house. Loring, though it 
does a pretty trade as a small town, and 
now has for some years been regarded 
as a thriving place in its degree, is not 
of such importance in the way of busi- 
ness as to support a commercial inn of 
the first class. At such houses the 
commercial room is as much closed 
against the uninitiated as is a first-class 
club in London. In such rooms a non- 
commercial man would be almost as 
much astray as is a non-broker in Capel 
Court, or an attorney in a Bar mess-room. 
At the Bull things were a little mixed. 
The very fact that the words « Com- 
mercial Room ” were painted on the 
door proved to those who understood 
such matters that there was a doubt in 
the case. They had no coffee-room at 
the Bull, and strangers who came that 
way were of necessity shown into that 
in which the gentlemen of the road were 
wont to relax themselves. Certain com- 
mercial laws are maintained in s,uch 
apartments. Cigars are not allowed be- 
fore nine o’clock, except upon some dis- 
tinct arrangement with the waiter. There 
is not, as a rule, a regular daily com- 
mercial repast, but when three or more 
gentleman dine together at five o’clock, 
the dinner becomes a commercial dinner, 
and the commercial laws as to wine, etc., 
are enforced, with more or less restriction 
as circumstances may seem to demand. 
At the present time there was but one 
occupant of the chamber to greet Mr. 
Gilmore when he entered, and this greet- 
ing was made with all the full honors of 
commercial courtesy. The commercial 
gentleman is of his nature gregarious, 
• and although he be exclusive to a strong 
degree — more so probably than almost 


any other man in regard to the sacred 
hour of dinner when in the full glory of 
his confraternity — he will condescend, 
when the circumstances of his profession 
have separated him from his professional 
brethren, to be festive with almost any 
gentleman whom chance may throw in 
his way. Mr. Cockey had been alone for 
a whole day when Gilmore arrived, hav- 
ing reached Loring just twenty-four hours 
in advance of our friend, and was con- 
templating the sadly-diminished joys of 
a second solitary dinner at the Bull when 
fortune threw this stranger in his way. 
The waiter, looking at the matter in a 
somewhat similar light, and aware that a 
combined meal would be for the advan- 
tage of all parties, very soon assisted 
Mr. Cockey in making his arrangements 
for the evening. Mr. Gilmore would no 
doubt want to dine. Dinner would be 
served at five o’clock. Mr. Cockey was 
going to dine, and Mr. Gilmore, the 
waiter thought, would probably be glad 
to join him. Mr. Cockey expressed 
himself as delighted, and would only be 
too happy. Now men in love, let their 
case be ever so bad, must dine or die. 
So much, no doubt, is not admitted by 
the chroniclers of the old knights who 
went forth after their ladies ; but the 
old chroniclers, if they soared somewhat 
higher than do those of the present day, 
are admitted to have been on the whole 
less circumstantially truthful. Our knight 
was very sad at heart, and would have 
done according to his prowess as much 
as any Orlando of them all for the lady 
whom he loved ; but nevertheless he was 
anhungered : the mention of dinner was 
pleasant , to him, and he accepted the 
joint courtesies of Mr. Cockey and the 
waiter with gratitude. 

The codfish and beefsteak, though 
somewhat woolly and tough, were whole- 
some, and the pint of sherry which at 
Mr. Cockey ’s suggestion was supplied 
to them, if not of itself wholesome, was 
innocent by reason of its dimensions. 
Mr. Cockey himself was pleasant and 
communicative, and told Mr. Gilmore a 
good deal about Loring. Our friend 
was afraid to ask any leading questions 
as to the persons in the place who in- 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


121 


ferested himself, feeling conscious that 
his own subject was one which would 
not bear touch from a rough hand. He 
did at last venture to make inquiry about 
the clergyman of the parish. Mr. Cockey, 
with some merriment at his own wit, de- 
clared that the church was a house of 
business at which he did not often call 
for orders. Though he had been com- 
ing to Loring now for four years, he had 
never heard anything of the clergyman, 
but the waiter no doubt would tell them. 
Gilmore rather hesitated, and protested 
that he cared little for the matter ; but 
the waiter was called in and questioned, 
and was soon full of stories about old 
Mr. Marrable. He wa» a good sort of 
man in his way, the waiter thought, but 
not much of a preacher. The people 
liked him because he never interfered 
w'ith them. “ He don’t go poking his 
nose into people’s ’ouses like some of 
’em,” said the waiter, who then began to 
tell of the pertinacity in that respect of a 
younger clergyman at Uphill. Yes ; Par- 
son Marrable had a relation living at Up- 
hill — an old lady. “No; not his grand- 
mother.” This was in answer to a joke 
on the part of Mr. Cockey. Nor yet a 
daughter. The w'aiter thought she was 
some kind of a cousin, though he did 
not know what kind. A very grand 
lady was Miss Marrable, according to 
his showing, and much thought of by 
the quality. There was a young lady 
living with her, though the waiter did 
not know’ the young lady’s name. 

“ Does the Rev. Mr. Marrable live 
alone ?” asked Gilmore. “ Well, yes — 
for the most part quite alone. But just 
at present he had a visitor.” Then the 
waiter told all that he knew about the 
captain. The most material part of this 
was, that the captain had returned from 
London that very evening — had come in 
by the express while the two “gents” were 
at dinner, and had been taken to the Low- 
town parsonage by the Bull ’bus. “ Quite 
the gentleman” was the captain, accord- 
ing to the waiter, and one of the “hand- 
somest gents as ever he’d set his eyes 
upon.” “ D — ii him !” said poor Harry 
Gilmore to himself. Then he ventured 
upon another question. Did the waiter 


know anything of Captain Marrable’s 
father ? The w’aiter only knew that the 
captain’s father was “a military gent, 
and was high up in the army.” From 
all which the only information which 
Gilmore received was the fact that the 
match between Marrable and Mary 
Lowther had not as yet become the talk 
of the town. After dinner Mr. Cockey 
proposed a glass of toddy and a cigar, 
remarking that he would move a bill for 
dispensing with the smoking rule for that 
night only ; and to this also Gilmore as- 
sented. Now that he was at Lorinsf he 
did not know what to do with himself 
better than drinking toddy with Mr. 
Cockey. Mr. Cockey declared the bill 
to be carried nez/z. con., and the cigars 
and toddy were produced. Mr. Cockey 
remarked that he had heard of Sir Gre- 
gory Marrable, of Dunripple Park. He 
traveled in Warwickshire, and was in 
the habit, as he said, of fishing up little 
facts. Sir Gregory wasn’t much of a 
man, according to his account. The 
estate w’as small, and, as Mr. Cockey 
fancied, a little out at elbows. Mr. 
Cockey thought it all very well to be a 
country gentleman and a “ barrow- 
knight,” as he called it, as long as you 
had an estate to follow, but he thought 
very little of a title without plenty of stuff. 
Commerce, according to his notions, was 
the backbone of the nation ; and that 
the corps of traveling commercial gentle- 
men was the backbone of trade, every 
child knew. Mr. Cockey became warm 
and friendly as he drank his toddy. 

“ Now I don’t know what you are, sir,” 
said he. 

“ I’m not very much of anything,” said 
Gilmore. 

“ Perhaps not, sir. Let that be as it 
may. But a man, sir, that feels that 
he’s one of the supports of the commer- 
cial supremacy of this nation ain’t got 
much reason to be ashamed of himself” 

“Not on that account, certainly.” 

“ Nor yet on no other account, as 
long as he’s true to his employers. Now 
you talk of country gentlemen !” 

“ I didn’t talk of them,” said Gilmore. ‘ 

“ Well, no you didn’t ; but they do, 
you know. What does a country gen- 


122 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


tleman know, and what does he do ? 
What’s the country the better of him ? 
He ’lints, and he shoots, and he goes to 
bed with his skin full of wine, and then 
he gets up and he ’unts and he shoots 
again, and ’as his skin full once more. 
That’s about all.” 

“ Sometimes he’s a magistrate.” 

«Yes, justices’ justice! we know all 
about that. Put an old man in prison 
for a week because he looks into his 
’ay-field on a Sunday, or send a young 
one to the treadmill for two months 
because he knocks over a ’are ! All 
them cases ought to be tried in the 
towns, and there should be beaks paid 
as there is in London. I don’t see the 
good of a country gentleman. Buying 
and selling — that’s what the world has 
to go by.” 

« They buy and sell land.” 

« No they don’t. They buy a bit now 
and then, when they’re screws, and they 
sell a bit now and then when the eating 
and drinking has gone too fast. But as 
for capital and 'investment, they know 
nothing about it. After all, they ain’t 
getting above two and a half per cent, 
for their money. We all know what 
that must come to.” 

Mr. Cockey had been so mild before 
the pint of sherry and the glass of toddy 
that Mr. Gilmore was somewhat dis- 
mayed by the change. Mr. Cockey, 
however, in his altered aspect seemed to 
be so much the less gracious that Gil- 
more left him and strolled out into the 
town. He climbed up the hill, and 
walked round the-church, and looked up 
at the windows of Miss Marrable house, 
of which he had learned the site; but 
he had no adventure, saw nothing that 
interested him, and at half-past nine took 
himself wearily to bed. 

That same day Captain Marrable had 
run down from London to Loring laden 
with terrible news. The money on 
which he had counted was all gone ! 
“ What do you mean ?” said his uncle : 
“have the lawyers been deceiving you 
all through ?” 

“ What is it to me ?” said the ruined 
man. “It is all gone. They have sat- 
isfied me that nothing more can be 


done.” Parson John whistled with a 
long-drawn note of wonder. “'The peo- 
ple they were dealing with w'ould be 
willing enough to give up the money, 
but it’s all gone. It’s spent, and there’s 
no trace of it.” 

“ Poor fellow !” 

“ I’ve seen my father, Uncle John.” 

“ And what passed ?” 

“ I told him that he was a scoundrel, 
and then I left hinn I didn’t strike 
him.” 

“ I should hope not that, Walter.” 

“ I kept my hands off him ; but when 
a man has ruined you, as he has me, it 
doesn’t much matter who he is. Your 
father and any other man are much the 
same to you then. He was worn and 
old and pale, or I should have felled him 
to the ground.” 

“ And what will you do now ?” 

“Just go to that hell upon earth on 
the other side of the globe. There’s 
nothing else to be done. I’ve applied 
for extension of leave, and told them 
why.” 

Nothing more was said that night be- 
tween the uncle and nephew, and no 
word had been spoken about Mary 
Lowther. On the next morning the 
breakfast at the parsonage passed by in 
silence. Parson John had been think- 
ing a good deal of Mary, but had re- 
solved that it was best that he should 
hold his tongue for the present. From 
the moment in which he had first heard 
of the engagement, he had made up his 
mind that his nephew and Mary Lowther 
would never be married. Seeing what 
his nephew was — or rather seeing that 
which he fancied his nephew to be — he 
was sure that he would not sacrifice him- 
self by such a marriage. There w^as 
always a way out of things, and Walter 
Marrable would be sure to find it. The 
way out of it had been found now with 
a vengeance. Immediately after break- 
fast the captain took his hat without a 
word, and walked steadily up the hill to 
Uphill Lane. As he passed the door 
of the Bull he saw — but took no notice 
of — a gentleman who was standing under 
the covered entrance to the inn, and who 
had watched him coming out from the 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


123 


parsonage gate ; but Gilmore, the moment 
that his eyes fell upon the captain, de- 
clared to himself that that was his rival. 
Captain Marrable walked straight up the 
hill and knocked at Miss Marrable’s 
door. Was Miss Lowther at home ? 
Of course Miss Lowther was at home 
at such an hour. The girl said that Miss 
Mary was- alone in the breakfast-parlor. 
Miss Marrable had already gone down 
to the kitchen. Without waiting for an- 
other word, he walked into the little back 
room, and there he found his love. 

Walter,” she said, jumping up and run- 
ning to him, “how good of you to come 
so soon ! We didn’t expect you these 
two days.” She had thrown herself in 
his arms, but though he embraced her, 
he did not kiss her. “ There is some- 
thing the matter !” she said. “ What 
is it As she spoke she drew away 
from him and looked up into his face. 
He smiled and shook his head, still hold- 
ing her by the waist. “Tell me, Wal- 
ter : I know there is something wrong.” 

“It is only that dirty money. My 
father has succeeded in getting it all.” 

“ All, Walter ?” said she, again draw- 
ing herself away. 

“ Every shilling,” said he, dropping 
his arm. 

“ That will be very bad.” 

“Not a doubt of it. I felt it just as 
you do.” 

“ And all our pretty plans are gone.” 

“ Yes — all our pretty plans.” 

“ And what shall you do now ?” 

“ There is only one thing. I shall go 
to India again. Of course it is just the 
same to me as though I were told that 
sentence of death had gone against me 
— only it will not be so soon over.” 

“ Don’t say that, Walter.” 

“ Why not say it, my dear, when I 
feel it 

“ But you don’t feel it. I know it 
must be bad for you, but it is not quite 
that. I will not think that you have 
nothing left worth living for.” 

“ I can’t ask you to go with me to 
that happy Paradise.” 

“ But I can ask you to take me,” she 
said; “though perhaps it will be better 
that I should not.” 


“ My darling ! my own darling !” Then 
she came back to him and laid her head 
upon his shoulders, and lifted his hand 
till it came again round her waist. And 
he kissed her forehead and smoothed 
her hair. “Swear to me,” she said, 
“ that whatever happens you will not put 
me away from you.” 

“ Put you away, dearest ! A man 
doesn’t put away the only morsel he has 
to keep him from starving. But yet as 
I came up here this morning I resolved 
that I would put you away.” 

“ Walter !” 

“ And even now I know that they 
will tell me that I should do so. How 
can I take you out there to such a life 
as that, without ' having the means of 
keeping a house over your head ?” 

“ Officers do marry without fortunes.” 

“Yes; and what sort of a time do 
their wives have ? Oh, Mary, my own, 
my own, my own ! it is very bad ! You 
cannot understand it all at once, but it 
is very bad.” 

“If it be better, for you, Walter — ” 
she said, again drawing herself away. 

“It is not that, and do not say that 
it is. Let' us, at any rate, trust each 
other.” 

She gave herself a little shake before 
she answered him : “ I will trust you in 
everything — as God is my judge, in 
everything. What you tell me to do, I 
will do. But, Walter, I will say one 
thing first. I can look forward to noth- 
ing but absolute misery in any life that 
will separate me from you. I know the 
difference between comfort and discom- 
fort in money-matters, but all that is as 
a feather in the balance. You are my 
god upon earth, and to you I must cling. 
Whether you be away from me or with 
me', I must cling to you the same. If 
I am to be separated from you for a 
time, I can do it with hope. If I am to 
be separated from you for ever, I shall 
still do so — with despair. And now I 
will trust you, and I will do whatever 
you tell me. If you forbid me to call 
you mine any longer, I will obey and 
will never reproach you.” 

“ I will always be yours,” he said, 
taking her again to his heart. 


124 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


“ Then, dearest, you shall not find me 
wanting for anything you may ask of 
me. Of course you can’t decide at 
present.” 

« I have decided that I must go to 
India. I have asked for the exchange.” 

“Yes, I understand; but about our 
marriage ? It may be that you should go 
out first. I would not be unmaidenly, 
Walter ; but remember this — the sooner 
the better, if I can be a comfort to you. 
But I can bear any delay rather than be 
a clog upon you.” 

Marrable, as he had walked up the 
hill — and during all his thoughts in- 
deed since he had been convinced that 
the money was gone from him — had been 
disposed to think that his duty to Mary 
required him to give her up. He had 
asked her to be his wife when he believed 
his circumstances to be other than they 
were ; and now he knew that the life he 
had to offer to her was one of extreme 
discomfort. He had endeavored to shake 
off any idea that as he must go back to 
India it would be more comfortable for 
himself to return without than with a 
wife. He wanted to make the sacrifice 
of himself, and had determined that he 
would do so. Now, at any rate for the 
moment, all his resolves were thrown to 
the wind. -His own love was so strong 
and was so gratified by her love that 
half his misery was carried away in an 
enthusiasm of romantic devotion. Let 
the worst come to the worst, the man 
that was so loved by such a woman could 
not be of all men the^ost miserable. 

He left the house, giving to her the 
charge of telling the bad news to Miss 
Marrable ; and as he went he saw in the 
street before the house the man whom 
he had seen standing an hour before 
under the gateway of the inn. And 
Gilmore saw him too, and well knew 
where he had been. 


CHAPTER XXX. 

THE AUNT AND THE UNCLE. 

Miss Marrable heard the story of 
the captain’s loss in perfect silence. 
Mary told it craftily, with a smile on her 


face, as though she were but slightly 
affected by it, and did not think very 
much on the change it might effect in 
her plans and those of her lover. “ He 
has been ill-treated, has he not ?” she 
said. 

“Very badly treated. I can’t under- 
stand it, but it seems to me that he has 
been most shamefully treated.” 

“He tried to explain it all to me, but 
I don’t know that he succeeded.” 

“ Why did the lawyers deceive him ?” 

“ I think he was a little rash there. 
He took what they told him for more 
than it was worth. There was some 
woman who said that she would resign 
her claim, but when they came to look 
into it, she too had signed some papers 
and the money was all gone. He could 
recover it from his father by law, only 
that his father has got nothing.” 

“ And that is to be the end of it ?” 

“ That is the end of our five thousand 
pounds,” said Mary, forcing a little laugh. 
Miss Marrable for a few moments made 
no reply. She sat fidgety in her seat, 
feeling that it was her duty to explain to 
Mary what must, in her opinion, be the 
inevitable result of this misfortune, and 
yet not knowing how to begin her task. 
Mary was partly aware of what was 
coming, and had fortified herself to 
reject all advice, to assert her right to 
do as she pleased with herself, and to 
protest that she cared nothing for the 
prudent views of worldly-minded people. 
But she was afraid of what was coming:. 
She knew that arguments would be used 
which she would find it very difficult to 
answer; and, although she had settled 
upon certain strong words which she 
would speak, she felt that she would be 
driven at last to quarrel with her aunt. 
On one thing she was quite resolved. 
Nothing should induce her to give up 
her engagement, short of the expression 
of a wish to that effect from Walter 
Marrable himself. 

“ How will this affect you, dear?” said 
Miss Marrable at last. 

“ I should have been a poor man’s 
wife, anyhow. Now I shall be the wife 
of a very poor man. I suppose that will 
be the effect.” 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


125 


“ What will he do ?” 

“ He has, aunt, made up his mind to 
go to India.” 

“ Has he made up his mind to any- 
thing else ?” 

“ Of course I know what you mean, 
aunt ?” 

“ Why should you not know ? I 
mean, that a man going out to India, 
and intending to live there as an officer 
on his pay, cannot be in want of a^wife.” 

“You speak of a wife as if she were 
the same as a coach-and-four or a box 
at the opera — a sort of luxury for rich 
men. Marriage, aunt, is like death — 
common to all.” 

“In our position in life, Mary, mar- 
riage cannot be made so common as to 
be undertaken without foresight for the 
morrow. A poor gentleman is farther 
removed from marriage than any other 
man.” 

“ One knows, of course, that there 
will be difficulties.” 

“ What I mean, Mary, is that you will 
have to give it up.” 

“Never, Aunt Sarah. I shall never 
give it up.” 

“ Do you mean that you will marry 
him now at once, and go out to India 
with him, as a dead weight round his 
neck .^” 

“ I mean that he shall choose about 
that.” 

“It is fpr you to choose, Mary. Don’t 
be angry. I am bound to tell you what 
I think. You can, of course, act as you 
please, but I think that you ought to 
listen to me. He cannot go back from 
his engagement witiiout laying himself 
open to imputations of bad conduct.” 

“ Nor can 1.” 

“ Pardon me, dear. That depends, I 
think, upon what passes between you. 
It is at any rate for you to propose the 
release to him — not td fix him with the 
burden of proposing it.” Mary’s heart 
quailed as she heard this, but she did 
not show her feeling by any expression 
on her face. “ For a man, placed as he 
is, about to return to such a climate as 
that of India, with such work before him 
as I suppose men have there, the burden 
of a wife, wit'r out the means of maintain- 


ing her according to his views of life and 
hers—” 

“We have no views of life. We know 
that we shall be poor.” - 

“It is the old story of love and a cot- 
tage — only under the most unfavorable 
circumstances. A woman’s view of it 
is of course different from that of a man. 
He has seen more of the world, and 
knows better than she does what poverty 
and a wife and family mean.” 

“ There 'is no reason why we should 
be married at once.” 

“A long engagement for you would 
be absolutely disastrous.” 

“ Of course, there is disaster,” said 
Mary. “ The loss of Walter’s money is 
disastrous. One has to put up with dis- 
aster. But the worst of all disasters 
would be to be separated. I can stand 
anything but that.” 

“It seems to me, Mary, that within 
the last few weeks your character has 
become altogether altered.” 

“ Of course it has.” 

* “You used to think so much more of 
other people than yourself.” 

*“ Don’t I think of him. Aunt Sarah ?” 

“ As of a thing of your own. Two 
months ago you did not know him, and 
now you are a millstone round his neck.” 

“ I will never be a millstone round 
anybody’s neck,” said Mary, walking out 
of the room. She felt that her aunt had 
been very cruel to her — had attacked her 
in her misery without mercy ; and yet 
she knew that every word that had been 
uttered had been spoken in pure affec- 
tion. She did not believe that her 
aunt’s chief purpose had been to save 
Walter from the fruits of an imprudent 
marriage. Had she so believed, the 
words would have had more effect on 
her. She saw, or thought that she saw, 
that her aunt was trying to save herself 
against her own will, and at this she was 
indignant. She was determined to per- 
severe ; and this endeavor to make her 
feel that her perseverence would be dis- 
astrous to the man she loved was, she 
thought, very cruel. She stalked up 
stairs with unruffled demeanor, but when 
there she threw herself on her bed and 
sobbed bitterly. Could it be that it was 


126 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


her duty, for his sake, to tell him that 
the whole thing should be at an end ? 
It was impossible for her to do so now, 
because she had sworn to him that she 
would be guided altogether by him in his 
present troubles. She must keep her 
word to him, whatever happened ; but of 
this she was quite sure — that if he should 
show the slightest sign of a wish to be 
free from his engagement, she would 
make him free at once. She would make 
him free, and would never allow herself 
to think for a moment that he had been 
wrong. She had told him what her own 
feelings were very plainly — perhaps, in 
her enthusiasm, too plainly — and now he 
must judge for himself and for her. In 
respect to her aunt, she would endeavor 
to avoid any further conversation on the 
subject till her lover should have decided 
finally what would be best for both of 
them. If he should choose to say that 
everything between them should be over, 
she would acquiesce ; and all the world 
should be over for her at the same time. 

While this was going on in Uphill 
Lane, something of the same kind was 
taking place at the Lowtown parsonage. 
Parson John became aware that his 
nephew had been with the ladies at 
Uphill, and when the young man came 
in for lunch he asked some question 
which introduced the subject: “You’ve 
told them of this fresh trouble, no doubt ?” 

“ I didn’t see Miss Marrable,” said 
the captain. 

“I don’t know that Miss Marrable 
much signifies. You haven’t asked Miss 
Marrable to be your wife.” 

“ I saw Mary, and told her.” 

“ I hope you made no bones about it ?” 

“ I don’t know what you mean, sir.” 

“ I hope you told her that you two had 
had your little game of play like two 
children, and that there must be an end 
of it.” 

« No ; I didn’t tell her that.” 

“ That’s what you have got to tell her 
in some kind of language, and the sooner 
you do it the better. Of course you can’t 
marry her. You couldn’t have done it 
if this money had been all right, and it’s 
out of the question now. Bless my soul ! 
how you would hate each other before 


six months were over ! I can under- 
stand that, for a strong fellow like you, 
when he’s used to it, India may be a jolly 
place enough — ” 

“ It’s a great deal more than I can 
understand.” 

“ But for a poor man with a wife and 
family — oh dear ! it must be very bad 
indeed. And neither of you have ever 
been used to that kind of thing.” 

“ I have not,” said the captain. 

“ Nor has she. That old lady up 
there is not rich, but she is as proud as 
Lucifer, and always lives aS though the 
whole place belonged to her. She’s a 
good manager, and she don’t run in 
debt ; but Mary Lowther knows no 
more of roughing it than a duchess.” 

“ I hope I may never have to teach 
her.” 

“ I trust you never may. It’s a very 
bad lesson for a young man to have to 
teach a young woman. Some women 
die in the learning. Some won’t learn 
it at all : others do, and become dirty 
and rough themselves. Now, you are 
very particular about women.” 

“ I like to see them well turned out.” 

“ What would you think of your own 
wife, nursing perhaps a couple of babies, 
dressed nohow when she gets up in the 
morning, and going on in the same way 
till night ? That’s the kind of life with 
officers who marry on their pay. I don’t 
say anything against it. If the man likes 
it — or rather if he’s able to put up with 
it — it may be all very well ; but you 
couldn’t put up with it. Mary’s very 
nice now, but you’d come to be so, sick 
of her that you’d fedi half like cutting her 
throat — or your own.” 

“It would be the latter for choice, 
sir.” 

“ I dare say it would. But even that 
isn’t a pleasant thing to look forward to. 
I’ll tell you the truth about it, my boy. 
When you first came to me and told me 
that you were going to marry Mary 
Lowther, I knew it could not be. It 
w^as no business of mine, but I knew it 
could not be. Such engagements always 
get themselves broken off somehow. 
Now and again there are a pair of fools 
who go through with it, but for the most 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


127 


part it’s a matter of kissing and lovers’ 
vows for a week or, two.” 

“You seem to know all about it, Uncle 
John ?” 

“ I haven’t lived to be seventy with- 
out knowing something, I suppose. And 
now’ here you are without a shilling. I 
dare say, if the truth were knowm, you’ve 
a few debts here and there.” 

“ I may owe three or four hundred 
pounds or so.” 

“ As much as a year’s income ; and 
you talk of marrying a girl without a 
farthing.” 

“ She has twelve hundred pounds.” 

“Just enough to pay your own debts, 
and take you out to India, so that you 
may start without a penny. Is that the 
sort of career that will suit you, Walter.^ 
Can you trust yourself to that kind of 
thing wdth a wife under your arm ? If 
you were a man of fortune, no doubt 
Mary would make a very nice wife, but 
as it is you must give it up.” 

Whereupon Captain Marrable lit a 
pipe and took himself into the parson’s 
garden, thence into the stables and 
stable-yard, and again back to the gar- 
den, thinking of all this. There was 
not a word spoken by Parson John 
which Walter did not know to be true. 
He had already come to the conclusion 
that he must go out to India before he 
married. As for marrying Mary at once 
and taking her with him this winter, that 
was impossible. He must go and look 
about him ; and as he thought of this he 
was forced to acknowledge to himself 
that he regarded the delay as a reprieve. 
The sooner the better had been Mary’s 
view with him. Though he was loth 
enough to entertain the idea of giving 
her up, he was obliged to confess that, 
like the condemned man, he desired a 
long day. There was nothing happy 
before him in the whole prospect of his 
life. Of course he loved Mary. He 
loved her very dearly. He loved 
her so dearly that to have her taken 
from him would be* to have his heart 
plucked asunder. So he swore to 
himself; and yet he was in doubt 
whether it would not be better that his 
heart should be plucked asunder than 


that she should be made to live in 
accordance with those distasteful pic- 
tures which his uncle had drawn for 
him. Of himself he would not think at 
all. Everything must be bad for him. 
What happiness could a , man expect 
who had been misused, cheated and 
ruined by his own father ? For himself 
it did not much matter what became of 
him, but he began to doubt whether for 
Mary’s sake it would not be well that 
they should be separated. And then 
Mary had thrust upon him the whole 
responsibility of a decision ! 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

MARY LOWTHER FEELS HER WAY. 

That afternoon there came down to 
the parsonage a note from Mary to the 
captain, asking her lover to meet her and 
walk with her before dinner. He met 
her, and they took their accustomed stroll 
along the towing-path and into the fields. 
Mary had thought much of her aunt’s 
words before the note was written, and 
had a fixed purpose of her own in view. 
It was true enough that though she loved 
this man with all her heart and soul — 
so loved him that she could not look 
forward to life apart from him without 
seeing that such life would be a great 
blank — yet she was aware that she hard- 
ly knew him. We are apt to suppose 
that love should follow personal acquaint- 
ance ; and yet love at third sight is 
probably as common as any love at all, 
and it takes a great many sights before 
one human being can know another. 
Years are wanted to make a friendship, 
but days suffice for men and women to 
get married. Mary was, after a fashion, 
aware that she had been too quick in 
giving away her heart, and that now, 
when the gift had been made in full, it 
became her business to learn what sort 
of man was he to whom she had given 
it. And it was not only his nature as it 
affected her, but his nature as it affected 
himself, that she must study. She did 
not doubt but that he was good and true 
and noble-minded ; but it might be pos- 
sible that a man good, true and noble- 


128 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


minded might have lived with so many 
indulgences around him as to be unable 
to achieve the constancy of heart which 
would be necessary for such a life as 
that which would be now before them if 
they married. She had told him that he 
should decide for himself and for her also 
— thus throwing upon him the respon- 
sibility, and throwing upon him also, very 
probably, the necessity of a sacrifice. 
She had meant to be generous and trust- 
ing, but it might be that of all courses 
that which she had adopted was the least 
generous. In order that she might put 
this wrong right if there were a wrong, 
she had asked him to come and walk 
with her. They met at the usual spot, 
and she put her hand through his arm 
with her accustomed smile, leaning upon 
him somewhat heavily for a minute, as 
girls do when they want to show that 
they claim the arm that they lean on as 
their own. 

« Have you told Parson John ?” said 
Mary. 

“ Oh yes.” 

“ And what does he say ?” 

“Just what a crabbed, crafty, selfish 
old bachelor of seventy would be sure to 
say.” 

“You mean that he has told you to 
give up all idea of comforting yourself 
with a wife 

“Just that.” 

“And Aunt Sarah has been saying 
exactly the same to me. You can’t 
think how eloquent Aunt Sarah has 
been. And her energy has quite sur- 
prised me.” 

“ I don’t think Aunt Sarah was ever 
much of a friend of mine,” said the 
captain. 

“ Not in the way of matrimony : in 
other respects she approves of you high- 
ly, and is rather proud of you than other- 
wise as a Marrable. If you were only 
heir to the title, or something of that 
kind, she would think you the finest fel- 
low going.” 

“ I wish I could gratify her, with all 
my heart.” 

“ She is such a dear old creature ! 
You don’t know her in the least, Wal- 
ter. I am told she was ever so pretty 


when she was a girl; but she had noi 
fortune of her own at that time, and she 
didn’t care to marry beneath her posi- 
tion. You mustn’t abuse her.” . 

“ I’ve not abused her.” 

“What she has been saying I am 
sure is very true ; and I dare say Par- 
son John has been saying the same 
thing.” 

“ If she has caused you to change 
your mind, say so at once, Mary. I 
sha’n’t complain.” 

Mary pressed his arm involuntarily, 
and loved him so dearly for the little 
burst of wrath. Was it really true that 
he, too, had set his heart upon it ? — that 
all that the crafty old uncle had said had 
been of no avail ? — that he also loved so 
well, that he was willing to change the 
whole course of his life and become 
another person for the sake of her ? If 
it were so, she would not say a word 
that could by possibility make him think 
that she was afraid. She would feel her 
way carefully, so that he might not be 
led by a chance phrase to imagine that 
what she was about to say was said on 
her own behalf. She would be very 
careful, but at the same time she would 
be so explicit that there should be no 
doubt on his mind but that he had her 
full permission to retire from the engage- 
ment if he thought it best to do so. She 
was quite ready to share the burdens of 
life with him, let them be what they 
might, but she would not be a millstone 
round his neck. At any rate, he should 
not be weighted with the millstone if he 
himself looked upon a loving wife in that 
light. 

“ She has not caused me to change 
my mind at all, Walter. Of course I 
know that all this is very serious. I 
knew that, without Aunt Sarah’s telling 
me. After all. Aunt Sarah can’t be so 
wise as you ought to be, who have seen 
India and who know it well.” 

“ India is not a nice place to live in, 
especially for women.” 

“ I don’t know ‘that Loring is very 
nice, but one has to take that as it 
comes. Of course it would be nicer if 
you could live at home and have plenty 
1 of money. I wish I had a fortune of 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


129 


r y Dvvn : I never cared for it before, but 
now.’* 

‘Things don’t come by wishing, 
■M: y.” 

No, but things do come by resolving 
:;nd struggling. I have no doubt but 
that you will live yet to do something 
and to be somebody. I have that faith 
in you. But I can well understand that 
a wife may be a great impediment in 
your way.” 

“ I don’t want to think of myself at 
all.” 

« But you must think of yourself. For 
a woman, after all, it doesn’t matter much. 
She isn’t expected to do anything par- 
ticular. A man, of course, must look to 
his own career, and take care that he 
does nothing to mar it.” 

“ I don’t quite understand what you’re 
driving at,” said the captain. 

“Well, I’m driving at this — that I 
think that you are bound to decide upon 
doing that which you feel to be wisest, 
without reference to my feelings. Of 
course I love you better than anything 
in the world. I can’t be so false as to 
say it isn’t so. Indeed, to tell the truth, 
I don’t know that I really ever loved 
anybody else. But if it is proper that 
we should be separated, I shall get over 
it — in a, way.” 

“ You mean you’d marry somebody 
else in the process of time.” 

“ No, Walter : I do not mean that. 
Women shouldn’t make protestations, 
but I don’t think I ever should. But a 
woman can live and get on very well 
without being married, and I should 
always have you in my heart, and I 
should try to comfort myself with re- 
membering that you had loved me.” 

« I am quite sure that I shall never 
marry any one else,” said the captain. 

“ You know what I’m driving at now — 
eh, Walter 

“ Partly.” 

“ I want you to know wholly. I told 
you this morning that I should leave it 
to you to decide. I still say the same. 
I consider myself for the present as 
much bound to obey you as though I 
were your wife already. But after say- 
ing that, and after hearing Aunt Sarah’s 


sermon, I felt that I ought to make you 
understand that I am quite aware that 
it may be impossible for you to keep to 
your engagement. You understand all 
that better than I do. Our engagement 
was made when you thought you had 
money, and even then you felt that there 
was little enough.” 

“It was very little.” 

“And now there is none. I don’t 
profess to be afraid of poverty myself, 
because I don’t quite know what it 
means.” 

“ It means something very unpleasant.” 

“No doubt ; and it would be unpleas- 
ant to be parted, wouldn’t it ?” 

“It would be horrible.” 

She pressed his arm again as she went 
on : “You must judge between the two. 
What I want you to understand is this — 
that whatever you may judge to be right 
and best, I will agree to it, and will 
think that it is right and best. If you 
say that we will get ourselves married 
and try it, I shall feel that not to get 
ourselves married and not to try it is a 
manifest impossibility ; and if you say 
that we should be wrong to get married 
and try it, then I will feel that to have 
done so was quite a manifest impossi- 
bility.” 

“ Mary,” said he, “ you’re an angel !” 

“ No ; but I’m a woman who loves 
well enough to be determined not to hurt 
the man she loves if she can help it.” 

“ There is one thing on which we 
must decide.” 

“ What is that ?” 

“ I must at any rate go out before we 
are married.” Mary Lowther felt this 
to be a decision in her favor — to be a 
decision which for the time made her 
happy and light-hearted. She had so 
dreaded a positive and permanent sepa- 
ration that the delay seemed to her to be 
hardly an evil. 


CHAPTER XXXir. 

MR. GILMORE’S SUCCESS. 

Harry Gilmore, the prosperous 
country gentleman, the county magis- 
trate, the man of acres, the nephew of 


130 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


Mr. Chamberlaine, repecled by all who I 
knew him — with the single exception of 
the Marquis of Trowbridge — was now 
so much reduced that he felt himself to 
^be an inferior being to Mr. Cockey, with 
whom he breakfasted. He had come to 
Loring, and now he was there he did 
not know what to do with himself. He 
had come there, in truth, not because he 
really thought he could do any good, but 
driven out of his home by sheer misery. 
He was a man altogether upset, and 
verging on to a species of insanity. 
He was so uneasy in his mind that 
he could read nothing. He was half 
ashamed of being looked at by those 
who knew him ; and had felt some 
relief in the society of Mr. Cockey till 
Mr. Cockey had become jovial with wine, 
simply because Mr. Cockey was so poor 
a creature that he felt no fear of him. 
But as he had come to Loring, it was 
necessary that he should do something. 
He could not come to Loring and go 
back again without saying a word to 
anybody. Fenwick would ask him ques-. 
tions, and the truth would come out. 
There came upon him this morning an 
idea that he would not go back home 
— that he would leave Loring and go 
away without giving any reason to any 
one. He was his own master. No 
one would be injured by anything 
that he might do. He had a right 
to spend his income as he pleased. 
Everything was distasteful that reminded 
him of Bullhampton. But still he knew 
that this was no more than a madman’s 
idea — that it would ill become him so to 
act. He had duties to perform, and he 
must perform them, let them be ever so 
distasteful. It was only an idea, made 
to be rejected, but nevertheless he 
thought of it. 

To do something, however, was in- 
cumbent on him. After breakfast he 
sauntered up the hill and saw Captain 
Marrable enter the house in which Mary 
Lowther lived. He felt thoroughly 
ashamed of himself in thus creeping 
about and spying things out ; and, in 
, truth, he had not intended to watch his 
rival. He wandered into the church- 
yard, sal there some time on the tomb- 


stones, and then again went down to the 
inn. Mr. Cockey was going to Glou- 
cester by an afternoon train, and invited 
him to join an early dinner at two. He 
assented, though by this time he had 
come to hate Mr. Cockey. Mr. Cockey 
assumed an air of superiority, and gave 
his opinions about matters political and 
social, as though his companion were 
considerably below him in intelligence 
and general information. He dictated 
to poor Gilmore, and laid down the law 
as to eating onions with beefsteaks in a 
manner that was quite offensive. Nev- 
ertheless, the unfortunate man bore with 
his tormentor, and felt desolate when he 
was left alone in the commercial room, 
Cockey having gone out to complefe his 
last round of visits to his customers. 
“ Orders first and money afterward,” 
Cockey had said, and Cockey had now 
gone out to look after, his money. 

Gilmore sat for some half hour help- 
less over the fire, and then, starting up, 
snatched his hat and hurried out ’of the 
house. He walked as quickly as he 
could up the hill, and rang th&bell at 
Miss Marrable’s house. Had he been 
there ten minutes sooner, he would have 
seen Mary Lowther tripping down the 
side path to meet her lover. He rang 
the bell, and in a few minutes found 
himself in Miss Marrable’s drawing- 
room. He had asked for Miss Mar- 
rable, had given his name and had been 
shown up stairs. There he remained 
alone for a few minutes, which seemed 
to him to be interminable. During 
these minutes Miss Marrable was stand- 
ing in her little parlor down stairs try- 
ing to think what she would say to Mr. 
Gilmore — trying also to think why Mr. 
Gilmore should have come to Loring. 

After a few words of greeting. Miss 
Marrable said that Miss Lowther was 
out walking. “ She will be very glad, 
I’m sure, to hear good news from her 
friends at Bullhampton.” 

“ They’re all very well,” said Mr. 
Gilmore. 

“ I’ve heard a great deal of Mr. Fen- 
wick,” said Miss Marrable — “so much 
that I seem almost to be acquainted 
with him.” 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


“No doubt,” said Mr. Gilmore. 

“Your parish has become painfully 
known to the public by that horrible 
murder,” said Miss Marrable. 

“Yes, indeed,” said Mr. Gilmore. 

“ I fear that they will hardly catch the 
perpetrator of it,” said Miss Marrable. 

“ I fear not,” said Mr. Gilmore. 

At this period of the conversation 
Miss Marrable found herself in great 
difficulty. If anything was to be said 
about Mary Lowther, she could not be- 
gin to say it. She had heard a great 
deal in favor of Mr. Gilmore. Mrs. 
Fenwick had written to her about the 
man ; and Mary, though she would not 
love him, had always spoken very highly 
of his qualities. She knew well that he 
had gone through Oxford with credit — 
that he was a reading man, so reputed — 
that he was a magistrate, and in all 
respects a gentleman. Indeed, she had 
formed an idea of him as quite a pearl 
among men. Now that she saw him 
she could not repress a feeling of dis- 
appointment. He was badly dressed, 
and bore a sad, depressed, downtrodden 
aspect. His whole appearance was what 
the world now calls seedy. And he 
seemed to be almost unable to speak. 
Miss Marrable knew that Mr. Gilmore 
was a man disappointed in his love, but 
she did not conceive that love had done 
him all these injuries. Love, however, 
had done them all. “ Are you going to 
stay long in this neighborhood ?” asked 
Miss Marrable, almost in despair for a 
subject. 

Then the man’s mouth was opened. 
“No, I suppose not,” he said. “ I don’t 
know what should keep me here, and I 
hardly know why I’m come. Of course 
you have heard of my suit to your niece.” 
Miss Marrable bowed her courtly little 
head in token of assent. “ When Miss 
Lowther left us, she gave me some hope 
that I might be successful. At least, she 
consented that I should ask her once 
more. She has now written to tell me 
that she is engaged to her cousin.” 

“ There is something of the kind,” said 
Miss Marrable. 

“ Something of the kind ! I suppose 
it is settled, isn’t it 

10 


131 

Miss Marrable was a sensible woman — 
one not easily led away by appearances. 
Nevertheless, it is probable that had Mr. 
Gilmore been less lugubrious, more sleek, 
less “seedy,” she would have been more 
prone than she now was to have made 
instant use of Captain Marrable’s loss 
of fortune on behalf of this other suitor. 
She would immediately have felt that 
perhaps something might be done, and 
she would have been tempted to tell 
him the whole story openly. As it was, 
she could not so sympathize with the 
man before her as to take him into her 
confidence. No doubt he was Mr. Gil- 
more, the favored friend of the Fenwicks, 
the owner of the Privets, and the man 
of whom Mary had often said that there 
was no fault to be found with him. But 
there was nothing bright about him, and 
she did not know how to encourage him 
as a lover. “As Mary has told you,” 
she said, “ I suppose there can be no 
harm in my repeating that they are en- 
gaged.” 

“ Of course they are. I am aware of 
that. I believe the gentleman is related 
to you.” 

“ He is a cousin — not very near.” 

“And I suppose he has your good- 
will ?” 

“As to that, Mr. Gilmore, I don’t 
know that I can do any good by speak- 
ing. Young ladies in these days don’t 
marry in accordance with the wishes of 
their old aunts.” 

“ But Miss Lowther thinks so much 
of you ! I don’t want to ask any ques- 
tions that ought not to be asked. If 
this match is so settled that it must go 
on, why there’s an end of it. I’ll just 
tell you the truth openly. Miss Marrable. 
I have loved — I do love — your niece with 
all my heart. When I received her let- 
ter it upset me altogether, and every hour 
since has made the feeling worse. I have 
come here just to learn whether there 
may still possibly be a chance. You 
will not quarrel with me because I loved 
her so well ?” 

“ Indeed, no,” said Miss Marrable, 
whose heart was gradually becoming soft, 
and who was learning to forget the mud 
on Mr. Gilmore’s boots and trousers. 


132 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


“ I heard that Captain Marrable was 
— at any rate, not a very rich man — 
that he could hardly afford to marry 
his cousin. I did hear, also, that the 
match might in other respects not be 
suitable.” 

« There is no other objection, Mr. 
Gilmore.” 

“ It is the case, Miss Marrable, that 
these things sometimes come on sud- 
denly and go off suddenly. I won’t 
deny that if I could have gained Miss 
Lowther’s heart without the interference 
of any interloper, it would have been to 
me a brighter joy than anything that 
can now be possible. A man cannot be 
proud of his position who seeks to win 
a woman who owns a preference for 
another man.” Miss Marrable’s heart 
had now become very soft, and she be- 
gan to perceive, of her own knowledge, 
that Mr. Gilmore was at any rate a gen- 
tleman. “ But I would take her in any 
way that I could get her. Perhaps — 
that is to say, it might be — ” And then 
he stopped. 

Should she tell him everything ? She 
had a strong idea that it was her first 
duty to be true to her own sex and to 
her own niece. But were she to tell the 
man the whole story, it would do her 
niece no harm. She still believed that 
the match with Captain Marrable must 
be broken off. Even were this done, it 
would be very long, she thought, before 
Mary would bring herself to listen with 
patience to another suitor. But of course 
it would be best for them all that this 
episode in Mary’s life should be forgotten 
and put out of sight as soon as possible. 
Had not this dangerous captain come up, 
Mary, no doubt — so thought Miss Mar- 
rable — would at last have complied with 
her friends’ advice, and have accepted a 
marriage which was in all respects ad- 
vantageous. If the episode could only get 
itself forgotten and put out of sight, she 
might do so still. But there must be de- 
lay. Miss Marrable, after waiting for half 
a minute to consider, determined that she 
would tell him something. “ No doubt,” 
she said, “ Captain Marrable’s income is 
so small that the match is one that Mary’s 
friends cannot approve.” 


“ I don’t think much of money,” jhe 
said. j 

“ Still it is essential to comfort, lllr. 
Gilm^ore.” ' 

« What I mean to say is, that I tim 
the last man in the world to insist upon 
that kind of thing, or to appear to tri- 
umph because my income is larger than 
another man’s.” Miss Marrable was 
now quite sure that Mr. Gilmore was a 
gentleman. “ But if the match is to be 
broken off — ” 

“ I cannot say that it will be broken 
off.” 

“ But it may be ?” 

“ Certainly it is possible. There are 
difficulties which may necessarily sepa- 
rate them.” 

“ If it be so, my feelings will be the 
same as they have always been since I 
first knew her. That is all that I have 
got to say.” 

Then she told him pretty nearly every- 
thing. She said nothing of the money 
which Walter Marrable would have in- 
herited had it not been for Colonel Mar- 
rable’s iniquity, but she did tell him 
that the young people would have no in- 
come except the captain’s pay and poor 
Mary’s little fifty pounds a year ; and 
she went on to explain that, as far as 
she was concerned and as far as her 
cousin the clergyman was concerned, 
everything would be done to prevent a 
marriage so disastrous as that in ques- 
tion, and the prospect of a life with so 
little of allurement as that of the wife of 
a poor soldier in India. At the same 
time she bade him remember that Mary 
Lowther was a girl very apt to follow 
her own judgment, and that she was 
for the present absolutely devoted to her 
cousin. “ I think it will be broken off,” 
she said: “that is my opinion. I don’t 
think it can go on. But it is he that 
will do it ; and for a time she will suffer 
greatly.” 

“ Then I will wait,” said Mr. Gilm ore. 
“I will go home and wait again. ' If 
there be a chance, I can live and hope.” 

“God grant that you may not hope in 
vain !” ; 

“ I would do my best to make : her 
happy. I will leave you now, and am 


1 

/ 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


ns 


very thankful for your kindness. There 
would be no good in my seeing Mary.” 

“ I think not, Mr. Gilmore.” 

« I suppose not. She would only 
feel that I was teasing her. You will not 
tell her of my being here, I suppose ?” 

“ It would do no good, I think.” 

“ None in the least. I’ll just go home 
and wait. If there should be anything 
to tell me — ” 

“If the match be broken off, I will 
take care that you shall hear it. I will 
write to Janet Fenwick. I know that 
she is your friend.” 

Then Mr. Gilmore left the house, de- 
scended the hill without seeing Mary, 
packed up his things and returned by 
the night train to Westbury. At seven 
o’clock in the morning he reached home 
in a Westbury gig, very cold, but, upon 
the whole, a much more comfortable man 
than when he had left it. He had almost 
brought himself to think that even yet 
he would succeed. 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 

FAREWELL. 

Christmas came, and a month be- 
yond Christmas, and by the end of Jan- 
uary, Captain Marrable and Miss Lowth- 
er had agreed to regard all their autumn 
work as null and void — to look back 
upon the love-making as a thing that 
had not been, and to part as friends. 
Both of them suffered much in this ar- 
rangement — the man being the louder in 
the objurgations which he made against 
his ill-fortune, and in his assurances to 
himself and others that he was ruined 
for life. And indeed no man could have 
been much more unhappy than was 
Walter Marrable in these days. To 
him was added the trouble — which he 
did not endeavor to hide from himself or 
Mary — that all this misery came to him 
from his own father. Before the end of 
November sundry renewed efforts were 
made to save a portion of the money, 
and the lawyers descended so low as to 
make an offer to take two thousand 
pounds. They might have saved them- 
selves the humiliation, for neither two i 


thousand pounds nor two hundred pounds 
could have been made to be forthcoming. 
Walter Marrable, when the time came, 
was painfully anxious to fight somebody, 
but he was told very clearly by Messrs. 
Block & Curling that there was nobody 
whom he could fight but his father, 
and that even by fighting his father 
he would never obtain a penny. “ My 
belief,” said Mr. Curling, “is that you 
could put your father in prison, but 
that probably is not your object.” Mar- 
rable was forced to own that that was 
not his object, but he did so in a 
tone which seemed to imply that a 
prison, were it even for life, would be 
the best place for his father. Block & 
Curling had been solicitors to the Mar- 
rabies for ever so many years ; and 
though they did not personally love the 
colonel, they had a professional feeling 
that the blackness of a black sheep of a 
family should not be made public — at 
any rate by the family itself or by the 
family solicitors. Almost every family 
has a black sheep, and it is the especial 
duty of a family solicitor to keep the 
family black sheep from being dragged 
into the front and visible ranks of the 
family. The captain had been fatally 
wrong in signing the paper which he had 
signed, and must take the consequences. 
“ I don’t think. Captain Marrable, that 
you would save yourself in any way by 
proceeding against the colonel,” said Mr. 
Curling. “ I have not the slightest in- 
tention of proceeding against him,” said 
the captain, in great dudgeon ; and then 
he left the office and shook the dust off 
his feet, as against Block & Curling as 
well as against his father. 

After this — immediately after it — he 
had one other interview with his father. 
As he told his uncle, the devil prompted 
him to go down to Portsmouth to see 
the man to whom his interests should 
have been dearer than to all the world 
besides, and who had robbed him so 
ruthlessly. There was nothing to be 
gained by such a visit. Neither money 
nor counsel, nor even consolation, would 
be forthcoming from Colonel Marrable. 
Probably Walter Marrable felt in his 
> anger that it would be unjust that his 


134 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


father should escape without a word to 
remind him from his son’s mouth of all 
that he had done for his son. The 
colonel held some staff office at Ports- 
mouth, and his son came upon him in 
his lodgings one evening as he was 
dressing to go out to dinner. “ Is that 
you, Walter?” said the battered old rep- 
robate, appearing at the door of his bed- 
room : « I am very glad to see you.” 

« I don’t believe it,” said the son. 

“Well, what would you have me say? 
If you’ll only behave decently, I shall be 
glad to see you.” 

“You’ve given me an example in 
that way, sir, have you not ? Decency, 
indeed !” 

“ Now, Walter, if you’re going to talk 
about that horrid money, I tell you at 
once that I won’t listen to you.” 

“ That’s kind of you, sir.” 

“ I’ve been unfortunate. As soon as 
I can repay it, or a part of it, I will. 
Since you’ve been back, I’ve done 
everything in my power to get a portion 
of it for you ; and should have got it, 
but for those stupid people in Bedfor.d 
Row. After all, the money ought to 
have been mine, and that’s what I sup- 
pose you felt when you enabled me to 
draw it.” 

“ By Heavens, that’s cool !” 

“ I mean to be cool — I’m always cool. 
The cab will be here to take me to din- 
ner in a very few minutes. I hope you 
will not think I am running away from 
you ?” 

“ I don’t mean you to go till you’ve 
heard what I’ve got to say,” said the 
captain. 

“ Then, pray say it quickly.” Upon 
this the colonel stood still and faced his 
son — not exactly with a look of anger, 
but assuming an appearance as though 
he were the person injured. He was a 
thin old man, who wore padded coats, 
and painted his beard and his eyebrows, 
and had false teeth, and who, in spite of 
chronic absence of means, always was 
possessed of clothes apparently just new 
from the hands of a West End tailor. 
He was one of those men who, through 
their long, useless, ill-flavored lives, 
always contrive to live well, to eat and 


drink of the best, to lie softly, and to go 
about in purple and fine linen ; and yet 
never have any money. Among a cer- 
tain set. Colonel Marrable, though well 
known, was still popular. He was good- 
tempered, well-mannered, sprightly in 
conversation, and had not a scruple in 
the world. He was over seventy, had 
lived hard, and must have known that 
there was not much more of life for him. 
But yet he had no qualms and no fears. 
It may be doubted whether he knew that 
he was a bad man — he, than whom you 
could find none worse, though you were 
to search the country from one end to 
another. To lie ; to steal — not out of 
tills or pockets, because he knew the 
danger ; to cheat — not at the card-table, 
because he had never come in the way 
of learning the lesson ; to indulge every 
passion, though the cost to others might 
be ruin for life ; to know no gods but 
his own bodily senses, and no duty but 
that which he owed to those gods ; to 
eat all and produce nothing ; to love no 
one but himself ; to have learned nothing 
but how to sit at table like a gentleman ; 
to care not at all for his country, or even 
for his profession ; to have no creed, no 
party, no friend, no conscience ; to be 
troubled with nothing that touched his 
heart, — such had been, was and was to 
be the life of Colonel Marrable. Perhaps 
it was accounted to him as a merit by 
some that he did not quail at any coming 
fate. When his doctor warned him that 
he must go soon unless he would refrain 
from this and that and the other — so 
wording his caution that the colonel 
could not but know and did know that 
let him refrain as he would he must go 
soon — he resolved that he would refrain, 
thinking that the charms of his wretched 
life were sweet enough to be worth such 
sacrifice ; but in no other respect did the 
caution affect him. He never asked 
himself whether he had aught even to 
regret before he died or to fear after- 
ward. 

There are many Colonel Marrables 
about in the world, known well to be so 
at clubs, in drawing-rooms and by the 
tradesmen who supply them. Men give 
them dinners and women smile upon 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


135 


them. ■ The best of coats and boots are 
supplied to them. They never lack 
cigars and champagne. They have 
horses to ride, and servants to wait upon 
them more obsequious than the servants 
of other people. And men will lend 
them money too, well knowing that there 
is no chance of repayment. Now and 
then one hears a horrid tale of some 
young girl who surrenders herself to 
such a one, absolutely for love ! Upon 
the whole, the Colonel Marrables are 
popular. It is hard to follow such a 
man quite to the end, and to ascertain 
whether or no he does go out softly at 
last like the snuff of a candle — just with 
a little stink. 

“ I will say it as quickly as I can,” 
said the captain. « I can gain noth- 
ing, I knov/, by staying here in your 
company.” 

“ Not while you are so very uncivil.” 

“ Uncivil, indeed ! I have to-day made 
up my mind — not for your sake, but for 
that of the family — that I will not prose- 
cute you as a criminal for the gross rob- 
bery which you have perpetrated.” 

“ That is nonsense, Walter, and you 
know it as well as I do.” 

“ I am going back to India in a few 
weeks, and I trust I may never be called 
upon to see you again. I will not if I 
can help it. It ma^ be a toss-up which 
of us may die first, but this will be our 
last meeting. 1 hope you may remem- 
ber on your deathbed that you have 
utterly ruined your son in every relation 
of life. I was engaged to marry a girl 
whom I loved, but it is all over, because 
of you.” 

“ I had heard of that, Walter, and I 
really congratulate you on your escape.” 

« I can’t strike you — ” 

“ No, don’t do that.” 

« Because of your age and because 
you are my father. I suppose you have 
no heart, and that I cannot make you 
feel it.” 

‘ My dear boy, I have an appetite, 
and I must go and satisfy it.” So say- 
ing, the colonel escaped, and the captain 
allowed his father to make his way down 
the stairs and into the cab before he 
followed. 


Though he had thus spoken to his 
father of his blasted hopes in regard to 
Mary Lowther, he had not as yet signi- 
fied his consent to the measure by which 
their engagement was to be brought alto- 
gether to an end. The question had 
come to be discussed widely among their 
friends, as is the custom with such 
questions in such circumstances, and 
Mary had been told from all sides that 
she was bound to give it up — that she 
was bound to give it up for her own 
sake, and more especially for his ; that 
the engagement, if continued, would 
never lead to a marriage, and that it 
would in the mean time be absolutely 
ruinous to her and him. Parson John 
came up and spoke to her with a strength 
for which she had not hitherto given 
Parson John credit. Her aunt Sarah 
was very gentle with her, but never 
veered from her opinion that the en- 
gagement must of necessity be aban- 
doned. Mr. Fenwick wrote to her a 
latter full of love and advice, and Mrs. 
Fenwick made a journey to Loring to 
discuss the matter with her. The dis- 
cussion between them was very long. 
“ If you are saying this on- my account,” 
said Mary, “ it is quite useless.” 

“ On what other account ? Mr. Gil- 
more’s ? Indeed, indeed, I am not think- 
ing of him. He is out of my mind alto- 
gether. I say it because I know it is 
impossible that you and your cousin 
should be married, and because such an 
engagement is destructive to both the 
parties.” 

“For myself,” said Mary, “it can 
make no difference.” 

“It will make the greatest difference. 
It would wear you to pieces with a de- 
ferred hope. There is nothing so kill- 
ing, so terrible, so much to be avcjded. 
And then for him — ! How is a man 
thrown about on the world as he will be, 
to live in such, a condition ?” 

The upshot of it all was, that Mary 
wrote a letter to her cousin proposing 
to surrender her engagement, and de- 
claring that it would be best for them 
both that he should agree to accept her 
surrender. That plan which she had 
adopted before, of leaving all the respon- 


136 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


sibility to him, would' not suffice. She 
had come to perceive during these weary 
discussions that if a way out of his 
bondage was to be given to Walter Mar- 
rable, it must come from her action and 
not from his. She had intended to be 
generous when she left everything to 
him, but it was explained to her, both by 
her aunt and Mrs. Fenwick, that her gen- 
erosity was of a kind which he could not 
use. It was for her to take the respon- 
sibility upon herself; it was for her to 
make the move ; it was, in short, for her 
to say that the engagement should be 
over. 

The very day that Mrs. Fenwick left 
her she wrote the letter, and Captain 
Marrable had it in his pocket when he 
went down to bid a last farewell to his 
father. It had been a sad, weary, tear- 
laden performance, the wanting of that 
letter. She had resolved that no sign 
of a tear should be on the paper, and she 
had rubbed the moisture away from her 
eyes a dozen times during the work, lest 
it should fall. There was but little of 
intended pathos in it ; there were no ex- 
pressions of love till she told him at the 
end that she would always love him 
dearly ; there was no repining, no men- 
tion of her own misery. She used all 
the arguments which others had used to 
her, and then drew her conclusion. She 
remembered that were she to tell him 
that she would still be true to him, she 
would in fact be asking for some such 
pledge back from him ; and she said 
not a word of any such constancy on 
her own part. It was best for both of 
them that the engagement should be 
broken off ; and therefore broken off it 
was, and should be now and for ever. 
That was the upshot of Mary Lowther’s 
letter. 

Captain Marrable, when he received it, 
though he acknowledged the truth of all 
the arguments, loved the girl far too well 
to feel that this release gave him any 
comfort. He had doubtless felt that the 
engagement was a burden on him — that 
he would not have entered into it had 
he not felt sure of his diminished for- 
tune, and that there was a fearful proba- 
bility that it might never result in their 


being married ; but not the less did the 
breaking up of it make him very wretch- 
ed. An engagement for marriage can 
never be so much to a man as it is to a 
woman — marriage itself can never be so 
much, can never be so great a change, 
produce such utter misery, or of itself 
be efficient for such perfect happiness ; 
but his love was true and steadfast, and 
when he learned that she was not to be 
his, he was as a man who had been rob- ^ 
bed of his treasure. Her letter was 
long and argumentative. His reply was 
short and passionate, and the reader 
shall see it: 

“Duke Street, January — , 186-. 

“ Dearest Mary : 

- 1 suppose you are right. Every- 
body tells me so, and no doubt every- 
body tells you the same. The chances 
are that I shall get bowled over ; and as 
for getting back again, I don’t know 
when I can hope for it. In such a con- 
dition it would, I believe, be very wrong 
and selfish were I to go and leave you to 
think of me as your future husband. You 
would be waiting for that which would 
never come. 

“ As for me, I shall never care for any 
other woman. A soldier can get on very 
well without a wife, and I shall always 
regard myself now as one of those use- 
less but common animals who are called 
‘ not marrying men.’ I shall never 
marry. I shall always carry your pic- 
ture in my heart, and shall not think 
that I am sinning against you or any 
one else when I do so after hearing that 
you are married. 

I need not tell you that I am very 
wretched. It is not only that I am 
separated from you, my own dear, dear- 
est girl, but that I cannot refrain from 
thinking how it has come to pass that it 
is so. I went down to see my father 
yesterday. I did see him, and you may 
imagine of what nature was the inter- 
view. I sometimes think when I lay in 
bed that no man was ever so ill-treated 
as I have been. 

“ Dearest love, good-bye ! I could 
not have brought myself to say what you 
have said, but I know that you are right. 



s 


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THE VICAR OR BULLHAMPTON. 


137 


It has not been my fault, dear. I did 
love you, and do love you, as truly as 
any man ever loved a woman. 

“Yours, with all my heart, 

“Walter Markable. 

“ I should like to see you once more 
before I start. Is there any harm in 
this ? I must run down to my uncle’s, 
but I will not go up to you if you think 
it better not. If you can bring yourself 
tc see me, pray, pray do.” 

In answer to this Mary wrote'to him 
to say that she would certainly see him 
when he came. She knew no reason, 
she said, why they, should not meet. 
When she had written her note she 
asked her aunt’s opinion. Aunt Sarah 
would not take upon herself to say that 
no such meeting ought to take place, but 
it was^very evident that she thought that 
it would be dangerous. 

Captain Marrable did come down to 
Coring about the end of January, and the 
meeting did take place. Mary had stip- 
ulated that she should be alone when he 
called- He had suggested that they 
should walk out together as had been 
their wont, but this she had declined, 
telling him that the sadness of such a 
walk would be too much for her, and 
saying to her aunt with a smile that 
were she once again out with him on 
the towing-path there would be no 
chance of their ever coming home. “ I 
could not ask him to turn back,” she said, 
“ when I should know that it would be 
for the last time.” It was arranged, 
therefore, that the meeting should take 
place in the drawing-room at UphiU 
Lane. 

He came into the room with a quick, 
uneasy step, and when he reached her 
he put his arm round lier and kissed 
her. She had formed certain little res- 
olutions on this subject. He should 
kiss her, if he pleased, once again when 
he went, and only once. And now, al- 
most without a motion on her part that 
was perceptible, she took herself out of 
liis arms. There 'should be no word 
about that if she could help it ; but she 
was bound to remember that he was 
nothing to her now but a distant cousin. 


He must cease to be her lover, though 
she loved him. Nay, he had so ceasea 
already. There must be no more laying 
of her head upon his shoulder, no more 
twisting of her fingers through his locks, 
no more looking into his eyes, no more 
amorous pressing of her lips against his 
own. Much as she loved him, she must 
remember now that such outward signs 
of love as these would not befit her. 

“ Walter,” she said, “ I am so glad to 
see you ! And yet I do not know but 
what it would have been better that you 
should have stayed away.” 

“ Why should it have been better ? 

It would have been unnatural not to 
have met each other.” 

“ So I thought. Why should not 
friends endure to say good-bye, even 
though their friendship be as dear as 
ours ? I told Aunt Sarah that I should 
be angry with myself afterward if I feared 
to tell you to come.” 

“ There is nothing to fear — only * 
that it is so wretched an ending,” said 
he. 

“In one way I will not look on it as 
an ending. You and I cannot be mar- 
ried, Walter, but I shall always have 
your career to look to, and shall think 
of you as my dearest friend. I shall 
expect you to write to me — not at first, 
but after a year or so. You will be able 
to write to me then as though you were 
my brother.” 

“ I shall never be able to do that.” 

“ Ob yes — that is, if you will make 
the effort for my sake. I do not believe 
but what people can manage and mould 
their own wills if they will struggle hard 
enough. You must not be unhappy, 
Walter.” 

“ I am not so wise or self-confident 
as you, Mary. I shall be unhappy. I 
should be deceiving myself if I were to 
tell myself otherwise. There is nothing 
before me to make me happy. When I 
came home, there was very little that I 
cared for, though I had the prospect of 
this money, and thought that my cares 
in that respect were over. Then I met 
you, and the whole world seemed altered. 

I was happy even when I found how 
I badly I had been treated. Now all that 


138 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


has gone, and I cannot think that I shall 
be happy again.” 

« I mean to be happy, Walter.” 

“ I hope you may, dear.” 

“There are gradations in happiness. 
The highest I ever came to yet was 
when you told me that you loved me.” 
When she said that he attempted to take 
her hand, but she withdrew from him, 
almost without a sign that she was doing 
so. “ I have not quite lost that yet,” 
she continued, “and I do not mean to 
lose it altogether. I shall always re- 
member that you loved me, Walter ; 
and you will not forget that I too loved 
you.” 

“ Forget it ? — no, I don’t exactly think 
that I shall forget it.” 

“ I don’t know why it should make us 
altogether unhappy, For a time, I sup- 
pose, we shall be downhearted.” 

“ I shall, I know. I can’t pretend to 
such strength as to say that I can lose 
what I want and not feel it” 

“We shall both feel it, Walter, but I 
do not know that we must be miserable. 
When do you leave England ?” 

“ Nothing is settled. I have not had 
the heart to think of my departure. It 
will not be for a month or two yet. I 
suppose I shall stay out my regular 
Indian time.” 

“And what shall you do with your- 
self?” 

“ I have no plans at all, Mary. Sir 
Gregory has asked me to Dunripple, and 
I shall remain there probably tiM I am 
tired of it. It will be so pleasant talk- 
ing to my uncle of my father.” 

“ Do not talk of him at all, Walter. 
You wall best forgive him by not talking 
of him. We shall hear, I suppose, of 
what you do from Parson John.” 

She had seated herself a little way 
from him, and he did not attempt to 
draw near to her again till at her bidding 
he rose to leave her. He sat there for 
nearly an hour, and during that time 
much more was said by her than by him. 
She endeavored to make him understand 
that he was as free as air, and that she 
would hope some day to hear that he 
was married. In reply to this he as- 
serted very loudly that he would never 


call any woman his wife unless unex- 
pected circumstances should enable him 
to return and again ask for her hand. 

“ Not that you ar-e to wait for me. 
Mary,” he said. She smiled, but made 
no definite answer to this. She had 
told herself that it would not be for his 
welfare that she should allude to the 
possibility of a renewed engagement, and 
she did not allude to it. 

“ God bless you, Walter !” she said 
at last, coming to him and offering him 
her hand. 

“ God bless you, for ever and ever, 
dearest Mary !” he said, taking her in 
his arms and kissing her again and 
again. It was to be the last, and she 
did not seem to shun him. Then he 
left her, went as far as the door and re- 
turned again. “ Dearest, dearest Mary ! 
You will give me one more kiss V\ 

“ It shall be the last, Walter,” she 
said. Then she did kiss him, as she 
would have kissed her brother that .was 
going from her, and escaping from his 
arms she left the room. 

He had come to Loring late on the 
previous evening, and on that same day 
he returned to London. No doubt he 
dined at his club, drank a pint of wine 
and smoked a cigar or two, though he 
did it all after a lugubrious fashion. Men 
knew that he had fallen into great trou- 
ble in the matter of his inheritance, and 
did not expect him to be joyful and of 
pleasant countenance. “ By George !” 
said little Captain Boodle, “ if it was my 
governor, I’d go very near being hung 
for him — I would, by George !” Which 
remark obtained a good deal of general 
sympathy in the billiard-room of that 
military club. In the mean time, Mary 
Lowther at Loring had resolved that she 
would not be lugubrious, and she sat 
down to dinner opposite to her aunt with 
a pleasant smile on her face. Before the 
evening was over, however, she had in 
some degree broken down. “I fear I 
can’t get along with novels. Aunt Sarah,” 
she said. “ Don’t you think I could find 
something to do ?” 

Then the old lady came round the 
room and kissed her niece, but she made 
no other reply. 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


139 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 

BULLHAMPTON NEWS. 

When the matter was quite settled at 
Loring — when Miss Marrable not only 
knew that the engagement had been sur- 
rendered on both sides, but that it had 
been so surrendered as to be incapable of 
being again patched up — she bethought 
herself of her promise to Mr. Gilmore. 
This did not take place for a fortnight 
after the farewell which was spoken in the 
last chapter, at which time Walter Mar- 
rable was staying with his uncle, Sir Greg- 
ory, at Dunripple. Miss Marrable had 
undertaken that Mr. Gilmore should be 
informed as soon as the engagement was 
brought to an end, and he had been told 
that this information should reach him 
through Mrs. Fenwick. When a fort- 
night had passed. Miss Marrable was 
aware that Mary had not herself written 
to her friend at Bullhampton ; and 
though she felt herself to be shy of the 
subject, though she entertained a repug- 
nance to make any communication based 
on a hope that Mary might after a while 
receive her old lover graciously — for time 
must of course be needed before such 
grace could be accorded — she did write 
a few lines to Mrs. Fenwick. She ex- 
plained that Captain Marrable was to 
return to India, and that he was to go 
as a free man. Mary, she said, bore 
her burden well. Of course, it must be 
some time before the remembrance of her 
cousin would cease to be a burden to her ; 
but she went about her heavy task with 
a good will, so said Miss Marrable, and 
would no doubt conquer her own unhap- 
piness after a time by the strength of 
her personal character. Not a word was 
spoken of Mr. Gilmore, but Mrs. Fen- 
wick understood it all. The letter, she 
knew well, was a message to Mr. Gil- 
more — a message which it would be her 
duty to give as soon as possible, that he 
might extract from it such comfort as it 
would contain for him, though it would 
be his duty not to act upon it for, at any 
rate, many months to come. “ And it 
will be a comfort to him,” said her hus- 
band when he read Miss Marrable’s letter. 

« Of all the men I know he is the most 


constant,” said Mrs. Fenwick, “and best 
deserves that his constancy should be 
rewarded.” 

“It is the man’s nature,” said the 
parson. “ Of course he will get her at 
last ; and when he has got her, he will 
be quite contented with the manner in 
which he has won her. There’s nothing 
like going on with a thing. I believe 1 
might be a bishop if I set my heart on it.’’ 

“ Why don’t you, then ?” 

“ I am not sure that the beauty of the 
thing is so well defined to me as is Mary 
Lowther’s to poor Harry. In perse- 
verance and success of that kind the 
man’s mind should admit of no doubt. 
Harry is quite clear of this — that in spite 
of Mary’s preference for her cousin, it 
would be the grandest thing in the world 
to him that she should marry him. The 
certainty of his condition will pull him 
through at last.” 

Two days after this, Mrs. Fenwick 
put Miss Marrable’s letter into Mr. Gil- 
more’s hand, having perceived that it 
was specially written that it might be 
so treated. She kept it in her pocket 
till she should chance to see him, and 
at last handed it to him as she met him 
walking on his own grounds. “ I have 
a letter from Loring,” she said. 

“From Mary?” 

“ No — from Mary’s aunt. I have it 
here, and I think you had better read it. 
To tell you the truth, Harry, I have 
been looking for you ever since I got it. 
Only you must not make too much of it.” 

Then he read the letter. “ What do 
you mean,” he asked, “by making too 
much of it ?” 

“ You must not suppose that Mary is 
the same as before she saw this cousin 
of hers.” 

“ But she is the same.” 

“ Well, yes — in body and in soul, no 
doubt. But such an experience leaves 
a mark which cannot be rubbed out 
quite at once.” 

“You mean that I must wait before I 
ask her again ?” 

“ Of course you must wait. The mark 
must be rubbed out first, you know.” 

“ I will wait, but as for the rubbing 
out of the mark, I take it that will be 


140 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON, 


altogether beyond me. Do you think, 
Mrs. Fenwick, that no woman should 
ever, under any circumstances, marry one 
man when she loves another ?” 

She could not bring herself to tell him 
that in her opinion Mary Lbwther would 
of all women be the least likely to do so. 
“That is one of those questions,” she 
said, “ which it is almost impossible for 
a person to answer. In the first place, 
before answering it, we should have a 
clear definition of love.” 

“ You know what I mean well enough.’ 

“ I do know what you mean, but I 
hardly do know how to answer you. If 
you went to Mary Lowther now, she 
would take it almost as an insult, and she 
would feel it in that light, because she is 
iware that you know of this story of her 
cousin.” 

“ Of course I shall not go to her at 
once.” 

“ She wfill never forget him altogether.” 

“ Such things cannot be forgotten,” 
said Gilmore. 

“ Nevertheless,” said Mrs. Fenwick, 
“ it is probable that Mary will be married 
some day. These wounds get themselves 
cured as do others.” 

“ I shall never be cured of mine,” said 
he, laughing. “As for Mary, I hardly 
know what to think. I suppose girls do 
marry without caring very much for the 
men they take — one sees it every day — 
and then afterward they love their hus- 
bands. It isn’t very romantic, but it 
seems to me that it is so.” 

“ Don’t think of it too much, Harry,” 
said Mrs. Fenwick. “If you still are 
devoted to her — ” 

“ Indeed I am.” 

“ Then wait a while, and we will have 
her at Bullhampton again. You know, 
at any rate, what our wishes are.” 

Everything had >*been very quiet at 
Bullhampton during the last three 
months. The mill was again in regular 
work, and Sam had remained at home 
with fair average regularity. The vicar 
had heard nothing more of Carry Brattle, 
and had been unable to trace her or to 
learn where she was living. He had 
taken various occasions to mention her 
name to her mother, but Mrs. Brattle 


knew nothing of her, and believed that 
Sam was equally ignorant with herself. 
Both she and the vicar found it impos- 
sible to speak to Sam on the subject, 
though they knew that he had been with 
his sister more than once when she was 
living at Pycroft Common. As for the 
miller himself, no one had mentioned 
Carry’s name to him since the day on 
which the vicar had made his attempt ; 
and from that day to the present there had 
been, if not ill blood, at least cold blood, 
between Mr. Fenwick and old Brattle. 
The vicar had gone down to the mill as 
often as usual, having determmed that 
what had occurred should make no 
difference with him ; and the intercourse 
with Mrs. Brattle and Fanny had been 
as kind on each side as usual ; but the 
miller had kept out of his way, retreating 
from him openly, going from the house 
to the mill as soon as he appeared, never 
speaking to him, and taking no other 
notice of him than a slight touch of 
the hat. “Your husband is still angry 
with me,” he said one day to Mrs. Brat- 
tle. She shook her head and smiled 
sadly, and said that it would pass over 
some day — only that Jacob was so per- 
sistent. With Sam the vicar held little 
or no communication. Sam in these 
days never went to church, and though 
he worked at the mill pretty constantly, 
he would absent himself from the village 
occasionally for a day or two together, 
and tell- no one where he had been. 

The strangest and most important 
piece of business going on at this time 
in Bullhampton was the building of a 
new chapel or tabernacle — the people 
called it a Salem — for Mr. Puddleham. 
The first word as to the erection reached 
Mr. Fenwick’s ears from Grimes the 
builder and carpenter, who, meeting him 
in Bullhampton street, pointed out to him 
a bit of spare ground just opposite to the 
vicarage gates — a morsel of a green on 
which no building had ever yet stood — 
and told him that the marquis had given 
it for a chapel. “ Indeed !” said Fen- 
wick. “I hope it may be convenient 
and large enough for them. All the 
same, I wish it had been a little farther 
from my gate.” This he said in a 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


cheery tone, showing thereby consider- 
able presence of mind. That such a 
building should be so placed was a trial 
to him, and he knew at once that the 
spot must have been selected to annoy 
him. Doubtless the land in question 
was the property of the Marquis of 
Trowbridge. When he came to think 
of it, he had no doubt on the matter. 
Nevertheless, the small, semi-circular 
piece of grass immediately opposite to 
his own swinging gate looked to all the 
world as though it were an appendage 
of the vicarage. A cottage built there 
would have been offensive, but a staring 
brick Methodist chapel, with the word 
Saleai inserted in large letters over the 
door, would, as he was aware, flout him 
every time he left or entered his garden. 
He had always been specially careful to 
avoid any semblance of a quarrel with 
the Methodist minister, and had in every 
way shown his willingness to regard Mr. 
Puddleham’s flock as being equal to his 
own in the general gifts of civilization. 
To Mr. Puddleham himself he had been 
very civil, sending him fruit and vege- 
tables out of the vicarage garden, and 
lending him newspapers. When the 
little Puddlehams were born, Mrs. Fen- 
wick always inquired after the mother 
and infant. The greatest possible care 
had been exercised at the vicarage since 
Mr. Fenwick’s coming to show that the 
Established Church did not despise the 
dissenting congregation. For the last 
three years there had been talk of a new 
chapel, and Mr. Fenwick had himself 
discussed the site with Mr. Puddleham. 
A large and commodious spot of ground, 
remote from the vicarage, had, as he 
believed, been chosen. When he heard 
those tidings, and saw what would be 
the effect of the building, it seemed to 
him almost impossible that a marquis 
could condescend to such revenge. He 
went .at once to Mr. Puddleham, and 
learned from him that Grimes’ story was 


141 

true. This had been in December. 
After Christmas the foundations were to 
be begun at once, said Mr. Puddleham, 
so that the brickwork might go on as 
soon as the frosts were over. Mr. Pud- 
dleham was in high spirits, and ex- 
pressed a hope that he should be in his 
new chapel by next August. When the 
vicar asked why the change of site was 
made, being careful to show no chagrin 
by the tone of his voice, Mr. Puddleham 
remarked that the marquis’ agent thought 
that it would be an improvement ; “ in 
which opinion I quite coincide,” Si'w' 
Mr. Puddleham, looking very si :n 
showing his teeth as it were, anc. % 
playing an inclination for a parisl - 
rel. Fenwick, still prudent, m<' 1 . ; 

objection to the change, and drop ‘ 
word of displeasure in Mr. Pudd) ’ 
hearing. 

“ I don’t believe he can do i v 
Mrs. Fenwick, boiling with passi^' 

« He can, no doubt,” said the 

“ Do you mean to say the s 
his — to do what he likes with it : 

“ The street is the queen’s hi^ 
which means that it belongs to ' 
lie — but this is not the street. I take it 
that all the land in the village belongs to 
the marquis. I never knew of any com- 
mon right, and I don’t believe there is 
any.” 

“ It is the meanest thing I ever heard 
of in my life,” said Mrs. Fenwick. 

“ There I agree with you.” Later in 
the day, when he had been thinking of 
it for hours, he again spoke to his wife : 
“ I shall write to the marquis and re- 
monstrate. It will probably be of no 
avail, but I think I ought to do so for 
the sake of those that come after me. I 
shall be able to bother him a good deal, 
if I can do nothing else,” he added, 
laughing. “ I feel too that I must 
quarrel with somebody, and I won’t 
quarrel with dear old Puddleham, if 1 
can help It.” 



PART V. 


CHAPTER XXXV. 

MR. PUDDLEHAM’S NEW CHAPEL. 

T he vicar devoted a week to the 
consideration of his grievance 
about the chapel, and then did write to 
the marquis. Indeed, there was no time 
to be lost if he intended to do anything, 
as on the second day after his interview 
with Mr. Grimes, Grimes himself, with 
two of his men to assist him, began his 
measuring on the devoted spot, sticking 
in little marks for the corners of the 
projected building, and turning up a sod 
here and there. Mr. Qnmes was a 
staunch Churchman ; and though in the 
way of business he was very glad to 
have the building of a Methodist chapel 
— or of a Pagan temple, if such might 
come in his way — yet, even though he 
possibly might give some offence to the 
great man’s shadow in Bullhampton, he 
was willing to postpone his work for two 
or three days at the vicar’s request. 

Grimes,” the vicar said, « I’m not 
quite sure that I like this.” 

“Well, sir — no, sir. I was thinking 
myself, sir, that maybe you might take 
it unkind in the marquis.” 

“ I think I shall write to him. Per- 
haps you wouldn’t mind giving over for 


a day or two.” Grimes yielded at once, 
and topk his spade and measurements 
away, although Mr. Puddleham fretted a 
good deal. Mr. Puddleham had been 
much elated by the prospect of his new 
Bethel, and had, it must be confessed, 
received into his mind an idea that it 
would be a good thing to quarrel with 
the vicar under the auspices of the land- 
lord. Fenwick’s character had hitherto 
been too strong for him, and he had 
been forced into parochial quiescence 
and religious amity almost in spite of his 
conscience. He was a much older man 
than Mr. Fenwick, having been for thirty 
years in the ministr)", and he had always 
previously enjoyed the privilege of being 
on bad terms with the clergyman of the 
Establishment. It had been his glory 
to be a poacher on another man’s man- 
or — to filch souls, as it were, out of the 
keeping of a pastor of a higher grade 
than himself — to say severe things of the 
shortcomings of an endowed clergyman, 
and to obtain recognition of his position 
by the activity of his operations in the 
guise of a blister. Our vicar, under- 
standing something of this,’ had, with 
some malice toward the gentleman him- 
self, determined to rob Mr. Puddleham 
of his blistering powers. There is no 



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THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


H3 


doubt a certain pleasure in poaching 
which does not belong to the licit follow- 
ing of game, but a man can’t poach if 
the right of shooting be accorded to him. 
Mr. Puddleham had not been quite hap- 
py in his mind amidst the ease and 
amiable relations which Mr. Fenwick 
enforced upon him, and had long since 
begun to feel that a few cabbages and 
peaches did not repay him for the loss 
of those pleasant and bitter things which 
it would have been his to say in his 
daily walks and from the pulpit of his 
Salem, had he not been thus hampered, 
confined and dominated. Hitherto he 
had hardly gained a single soul from 
under Mr. Fenwick’s grasp — had indeed 
on the balance lost his grasp on souls, 
and was beginning to be aware that this 
was so because of the cabbages and the 
peaches. He told himself that though 
he had not hankered after these flesh- 
pots, that though he would have pre- 
ferred to be without the flesh-pots, he 
had submitted to them. He was pain- 
fully conscious of the guile of this young 
man, who had, as it were, cheated him 
out of that appropriate acerbity of re- 
ligion without which a proselyting sect 
can hardly maintain its ground beneath 
the shadow of an endowed and domi- 
neering Church. War was necessary to 
Mr. Puddleham. He had come to be 
hardly anybody at all because he was at 
peace with the vicar of the parish in 
which he was established. His eyes 
had been becoming gradually open to all 
this for years ; and when he had been 
present at the bitter quarrel between the 
vicar and the marquis, he had at once 
told himself that now was his oppor- 
tunity. He had intended to express a 
clear opinion to Mr. Fenwick that he, 
Mr. Fenwick, had been very wrong in 
speaking to the marquis as he had 
spoken ; and as he was walking out of 
the farm-house he was preparing some 
words as to the respect due to those in 
authority. It happened, however, that 
at that moment the wind was taken out 
of his sails by a strknge comparison 
which the vicar made to him between 
their own sins, two ministers of God 
they were, and the sins of Carry 
11 


Brattle. Mr. Puddleham at the moment 
had been cowed and quelled. He was 
not quite able to carry himself in the 
vicar’s presence as though he were the 
vicar’s equal. But the desire for a quar- 
rel remained, and when it was suggested 
to him by Mr. Packer, the marquis’ 
man of business, that the green opposite 
to the vicarage gate would be a con- 
venient site for his chapel, and that the 
marquis was ready to double his before- 
proffered subscription, then he saw 
plainly that the moment had come, and 
that it was fitting that he should gird up 
his loins and return all future cabbages 
to the proud donor. 

Mr. Puddleham had his eye keenly 
set on the scene of his future ministra- 
tion, and was aware of Grimes’ default 
almost as soon as that man with his 
myrmidons had left the ground. He at 
once went to Grimes with heavy denun- 
ciations, with threats of the marquis and 
with urgent explanation as to the neces- 
sity of instant work. But Grimes was 
obdurate. The vicar had asked him to 
leave the work for a day or two, and of 
course he must do what the vicar asked. 
If he couldn’t be allowed to do as much 
as that for the vicar of the parish, Bull- 
hampton wouldn’t be, in Mr. Grimes’ 
opinion, any place for anybody to live in. 
Mr. Puddleham argued the matter out, 
but he argued in vain. Mr. Grimes de- 
clared that there was time enough, and 
that he would have the work finished by 
the time fixed — unless, indeed, the mar- 
quis should change his mind. Mr. Pud- 
dleham regarded this as a most improb- 
able supposition. « The marquis doesn’t 
change his mind, Mr. Grimes,” he said ; 
and then he walked forth from Mr. 
Grimes’ house with much offence. 

By this time all Bullhampton knew of 
the quarrel — knew of it, although Mr. 
Fenwick had been so very careful to 
guard himself from any quarreling at all. 
He had not spoken a word in anger on 
the subject to any one but his wife, and 
in making his request to Grimes had 
done so with hypocritical good-humor. 
But nevertheless he was aware that the 
parish was becoming hot about it ; and 
when he sat down to write his letter to 


as 


144 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


the marquis, he was almost minded to 
give up the idea of writing, to return to 
Grimes and to allow the measuring and 
sod-turning to be continued. Why should 
a place of worship opposite to his gate 
be considered by him as an injury ? Why 
should the psalm-singing of Christian 
brethren hurt his ears as he walked 
about his garden ? And if, through the 
infirmity of his nature, his eyes and his 
ears were hurt, what was that to the 
great purport for which he had been 
sent into the parish? Was he not about 
to create enmity by his opposition ? and 
was it not his special duty to foster love 
and good-will among his people ? After 
all, he, within his own vicarage grounds, 
had all that it was intended that he 
should possess ; and that he held very 
firmly. Poor Mr. Puddleham had no 
such firm holding ; and why should he 
quarrel with Mr. Puddleham because that 
ill-paid preacher sought so earnestly to 
strengthen the ground on which his 
Salem stood ? 

As he paused, however, to think of 
all this, there came upon him the convic- 
tion that in this thing that was to be done 
the marquis was determined to punish 
him personally, and he could not resist 
the temptation of fighting the marquis. 
And then, if he succumbed easily in this 
affair, would it not follow almost as a 
matter of course that the battle against 
him would be carried on elsewhere ? If 
he yielded now, resolving to ignore alto- 
gether any idea of his own comfort or 
his own taste, would he thereby main- 
tain that tranquillity in his parish which 
he thought to be desirable ? He had 
already seen that in Mr. Puddleham’s 
manner to himself which made him sure 
that Mr. Puddleham was ambitious to 
be a sword in the right hand of the 
marquis. 

Personally, the vicar was himself 
pugnacious. Few men, perhaps, were 
more so. If there must be a fight, let 
them come on and he would do his best. 
Turning the matter thus backward and 
forward in his mind, he came at last to 
the conclusion that there must be a fight, 
and consequently he wrote the following 
letter to the marquis : 


“ Bullhampton Vicarage, Jan. 3, 186- 
« My Lord Marquis : 

« I learned by chance the other day in 
the village that a new chapel for the use 
of the Methodist congregation of the 
parish was to be built on the little open 
green immediately opposite tlfe vicarage 
gate, and that this special spot of ground 
had been selected and given by your 
lordship for this purpose. I do not at 
all know what truth there may be in this, 
except that Mr. Grimes, the carpenter 
here, has received orders from your 
agent about the work. It may probably 
be the case that the site has been chosen 
by Mr. Packer, and not by your lordship. 
As no real delay to the building can at 
this time of the year arise from a short 
postponement of the beginning, I have 
asked Mr. Grimes to desist till I shall 
have written to you on the subject. 

“ I can assure your lordship, in the 
first place, that no clergyman of the 
Established Church in the kingdom can 
be less unwilling than I am that they 
who dissent from my teaching in the 
parish should have a commodious place 
of worship. If land belonged to me in 
the place, I would give it myself for such 
a purpose ; and were there no other 
available site than that chosen, I would 
not for a moment remonstrate against it. 
I had heard, with satisfaction, from Mr. 
Puddleham himself, that another spot 
was chosen near the cross-roads in the 
village, on which there is more space, to 
which, as I believe, there is no objection, 
and which would certainly be nearer than 
that now selected to the majority of the 
congregation. 

« But of course it would not be for me 
to trouble your lordship as to the ground 
on which a Methodist chapel should be 
built, unless I had reason to show why 
the site now chosen is objectionable. I 
do not for a moment question your lord- 
ship’s right to give the site. There is 
something less than a quarter of an acre 
in the patch in question ; and though 
hitherto I have always regarded it as 
belonging in some sort to the vicarage — 
as being a part, as it were, of the en- 
trance — I feel convinced that you, as 
landlord of the ground, would not enter- 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


145 


tain the idea of bestowing it for any pur- 
pose without being sure of your right to 
do so. I raise no question on this 
point, believing that there is none to be 
raised ; but I respectfully submit to your 
lordship whether such an erection as 
that contemplated by you will not be a 
lasting injury to the vicarage of Bull- 
hampton, and whether you would wish 
to inflict a lasting and gratuitous injury 
on the vicar of a parish the greatest por- 
tion of which belongs to yourself. 

“No doubt life will be very possible 
to me and my wife, and to succeeding 
vicars and their wives, with a red-brick 
chapel built as a kind of watch-tower 
over the vicarage gate. So would life 
be possible at Turnover Park with a 
similar edifice immediately before your 
lordship’s hall door. Knowing very well 
that the reasonable wants of the Meth- 
odists cannot make such a building on 
such a spot necessary, you no doubt 
would not consent to it ; and I now ven- 
ture to ask you to put a stop to this 
building here for the same reason. Were 
there no other site in the parish equally 
commodious, I would not say a word. 

“ I have the honor to be your lord- 
ship’s most obedient servant, 

“Francis Fenwick.” 

Lord Trowbridge, when he received 
this letter — when he had only partially 
read it, and liad not at all digested it — 
was disposed to yield the point. He 
was a silly man, thinking much too 
highly of his own position, believing 
himself entitled to unlimited deference 
from all those who in any way came 
within the rays of his magnificence, and 
easily made angry by opposition ; but 
he was not naturally prone to inflict evil, 
and did in some degree recognize it as a 
duty attached to his splendor that he 
should be beneficent to the inferiors with 
whom he was connected. Great as was 
his wrath against the present vicar of 
Bullhampton, and thoroughly as he con- 
ceived it to be expedient that so evil- 
minded a pastor should be driven out of 
the parish, nevertheless he felt some 
scruple at taking a step which would be 
injurious to the parish vicar, let the 


parish vicar be who he might. Packer 
was the sinner who had originated the 
new plan for punishing Mr. Fenwick — 
Packer, with the assistance of Mr. Pud- 
dleham ; and the marquis, though he 
had in some sort authorized the plan, 
had in truth thought very little about it. 
When the vicar spoke of the lasting 
injury to the vicarage, and when Lord 
Trowbridge remembered that he owned 
two thousand and two acres within the 
parish — as Mr. Puddleham had told him 
— he began to think that the chapel had 
better be built elsewhere. The vicar 
was a pestilent man, to whom punish- 
ment was due, but the punishment 
should be made to attach itself to the 
man rather than to the man’s office. So 
was working the marquis’ mind till the 
marquis came upon that horrid passage 
in the vicar’s letter in which it was sug- 
gested that the building of a Methodist 
chapel in his own park, immediately in 
front of his own august hall door, might 
under certain circumstances be expe- 
dient. The remark was almost as per- 
nicious and unpardonable as that which 
had been made about his lordship’s 
daughters. It was manifest to him that 
the vicar intended to declare that mar- 
quises were no more than other people, 
and that the declaration was made and 
insisted on with the determination of 
insulting him. Had this apostate priest 
been capable of feeling any proper appre- 
ciation of his own position and that of 
the marquis, he would have said nothing 
of Turnover Park. When the marquis 
had read the letter a second time and 
had digested it, he perceived that its 
whole tenor was bad, that the writer was 
evil-minded, and that no request made 
by him should be granted. Even though 
the obnoxious chapel should have to be 
pulled down for the benefit of another 
vicar, it should be put up for the pun- 
ishment of this vicar. A man who wants 
to have a favor done for him can hardly 
hope to be successful if he asks for the 
favor with insolence. So the heart of 
the marquis was hardened, and he was 
strengthened to do that which misbe- 
came him both as a gentleman and a 
landlord. 


146 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


He did not answer the letter for some 
time, but he saw Packer, saw his head 
agent, and got out the map of the pro- 
perty. The map of the property was 
not very clear in the matter, but he re- 
membered the space well, and convinced 
himself that no other place in all Bull- 
hampton could be so appropriate for a 
Methodist chapel. At the end of a week 
he caused a reply to be written to Mr. 
Fenwick. He would not demean him- 
self by writing with his own hand, but 
he gave his orders to the head agent. 
The head agent merely informed the 
vicar that it was considered that the 
spot of ground in question was the most 
appropriate in the village for the purpose 
in hand. 

Mrs. Fenwick, when she heard the 
reply, burst out into tears. She was a 
woman by no means over-devoted to the 
things of this world — who thought much 
of her duties and did them — who would 
have sacrificed anything for her husband 
and children — who had learned the fact 
that . both little troubles and great, if 
borne with patience, may be borne with 
ease; but she did think much* of her 
house, was proud of her garden, and 
rejoiced in the external prettiness of her 
surroundings. It was gall to her that 
this hideous building should be so placed 
as to destroy the comeliness of that side 
of her abode. “We shall hear their 
singing and ranting whenever we open 
our front windows,” she said. 

“ Then we won’t open them,” said the 
vicar. 

“We can’t help ourselves. Just see 
what it will be whenever we go in and 
out ! We might just as well have it in- 
side the house at once.” 

“You speak as though Mr. Puddle- 
ham were always in his pulpit.” 

“ They’re always doing something ; 
and then the building will be there, 
whether it is open or shut. It will alter 
the parish altogether, and I really think 
it will be better that you should get an 
exchange.” 

“ And run away from my enemy ?” 

“It would be running away from an 
intolerable nuisance.” 

“ I won’t do that,” said the vicar. 


“ If there were no other reasons for 
staying, I won’t put it in the power of 
the Marquis of Trowbridge to say that 
he has turned me out of my parish, and 
so punished me because I have not sub- 
mitted myself to him. I have not sought 
the quarrel. He has been overbearing 
and insolent, and now is meanly desirous 
to injure me because I will not suffer his 
insolence. No doubt, placed as he is, 
he can do much, but he cannot turn me 
out of Bullhampton.” 

“What is the good of staying, Frank, 
if we are to be made wretched?” 

“ We wonH be made wretched. What ! 
be wretched because there is an ugly 
building opposite to your outside gate ! 
It is almost wicked to say so. I don’t 
like it. I like the doing of the thing 
less even than the thing itself. If it can 
be stopped, I will stop it. If it could 
be prevented by any amount of fighting, 
I should think myself right to fight in 
such a cause. If I can see my way to 
doing anything to oppose the marquis, it 
shall be done. But I won’t run away.” 
Mrs. Fenwick said nothing more on the 
subject at that moment, but she felt that 
the glory and joy of the vicarage were 
gone from it. 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 

SAM BRATTLE GOES OFF AGAIN. 

Mr. Grimes had suggested to the 
vicar in a very low whisper that the new 
chapel might perhaps be put down as a 
nuisance. “It ain’t for me to say, of 
course,” said Mr. Grimes, “and in the 
way of business one building is as good 
as another as long as you see your 
money. But buildings is stopped be- 
cause they’re nuisances.” This occur- 
red a day or two after the receipt of the 
agent’s letter from Turnover, and the 
communication was occasioned by orders 
given to Mr. Grimes to go on with the 
building instantly, unless he intended to 
withdraw from the job. “ I don’t think, 
Grimes, that I can call a place of 
Christian worship a nuisance,” said the 
vicar. To this Grimes rejoined that he 
had known a nunnery bell to be stopped 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


147 


because it was a nuisance, and that he 
didn’t see why a Methodist chapel bell 
was not as bad as a nunnery bell. Fen- 
wick had declared that he would fight if 
he could find a leg to stand upon, and 
he thanked Grimes, saying that he would 
think of the suggestion. But when he 
thought of it, he did not see that any 
remedy was open to him on that side. 
In the mean time, Mr. Puddleham at- 
tacked Grimes with great severity be- 
cause the work was not continued. Mr. 
Puddleham, feeling that he had the mar- 
quis at his back, was eager for the fight. 
He had already received in the street a 
salutation from the vicar, cordial as 
usual, with the very slightest bend of his 
neck and the sourest expression of his 
mouth. Mrs. Puddleham had already 
taught the little Puddlehams that the 
vicarage cabbages were bitter with the 
wormwood of an endowed Establish- 
ment, and ought no longer to be eaten 
by the free children of an open Church. 
Mr. Puddleham had already raised up 
his voice in his existing tabernacle as to 
the injury which was being done to his 
flock, and had been very touching on 
the subject of the little vineyard which 
the wicked king coveted. When he 
described himself as Naboth, it could 
not but be supposed that Ahab and 
Jezebel were both in Bullhampton. It 
went forth through the village that Mr. 
Puddleham had described Mrs. Fenwick 
as Jezebel, and the torch of discord had 
been thrown down and war was raging 
through the parish. 

There had come to be very high 
words indeed between Mr. Grimes and 
Mr. Puddleham, and some went so far 
as to declare that they had^^eard the 
builder- threaten to punch the minister’s 
head. This Mr. Grimes denied stoutly, 
as the Methodist party were making 
much of it in consequence of Mr. Pud- 
dleham’s cloth and advanced years. 
« There’s no lies is too hot for them,” 
said Mr. Grimes, in his energy, “and 
no lawlessness too heavy.” Then he 
absolutely refused to put his hand to a 
spade or a trowel. He had his time 
named in his contract, he said, and no- 
body had a right to drive him. This 


was ended by the appearance on a cer- 
tain Monday morning of a Baptist build- 
er from Salisbury, with all the appurte- 
nances of his trade, and with a declara- 
tion on Mr. Grimes’ part that he would 
have the law on the two leading mem- 
bers of the Puddleham congregation, 
from whom he had received his original 
order. In truth, however, there had 
been no contract, and Mr. Grimes had 
gone to work upon a verbal order, which, 
according to the Puddleham theory, he 
had already vitiated by refusing com- 
pliance with its terms. He, however, 
was hot upon his lawsuit, and thus the 
whole parish was by the ears. 

It may be easily understood how much 
Mr. Fenwick would suffer from all this. 
It had been specially his pride that his 
parish had been at peace, and he had 
plumed himself on the way in which he 
had continued to clip the claws with 
which nature had provided the Meth- 
odist minister. Though he was fond of 
a fight himself, he had taught himself to 
know that in no way could he do the 
business of his life more highly or more 
usefully than as a peacemaker ; and as 
a peacemaker he had done it. He had 
never put his hand within Mr. Puddle- 
ham’s arm, and whispered a little paro- 
chial nothing into his neighbor’s ear, 
without taking some credit to himself 
for his cleverness. He had called his 
peaches angels of peace, and had spoken 
of his cabbages as being dove-winged. 
All this was now over, and there was 
hardly one in Bullhampton who was not 
busy hating and abusing somebody else. 

And then there came another trouble 
on the vicar. Just at the end of January, 
Sam Brattle came up to the vicarage and 
told Mr. Fenwick that he was going to 
leave the mill. Sam w^as dressed very 
decently, but he was attired in an un- 
Bullhampton fashion, which was not 
pleasant to Mr. Fenwick’s eyes ; and 
there was about him an air which seemed 
to tell of filial disobedience and personal 
independence. 

“ But you mean to come back again, 
Sam ?” said the vicar. 

“Well, sir, I don’t know as I do. 
Father and I has had words.” 


148 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


“ And that is to be a reason why you 
should leave him ? You speak of your 
father as though he were no more to you 
than another man.” 

« I wouldn’t ha’ borne not a tenth of 
it from no other man, Mr. Fenwick.” 

“ Well, and what of that ? Is there 
any measure of what is due by you to 
your father? Remember, Sam, I know 
your father well.” 

“You do, sir.” 

“ He is a very just man, and he is 
very fond of you. You are the apple 
of his eye, and now you would bring his 
gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.” 

“ You ask mother, sir, and she’ll tell 
you how it is. I just said a word to 
him — a word as was right to be said — 
and he turned upon me and bade me go 
away and come back no more.” 

“ Do you mean that he has banished 
you from the mill ?” 

“ He said what I tells you. He told 
mother afterward that if so as I would 
promise never to mention that thing 
again, I might come and go as I pleased. 
But I wasn’t going to make no such 
promise. I up and told him so, and 
then he — cursed me.” 

For a moment or two the vicar was 
silent, thinking whether in this affair 
Sam had been most wrong, or the old 
man. Of course he was hearing but one 
side of the question : “ What was it, 
Sam, that he forbid you to mention ?” 

“ It don’t matter now, sir ; only I 
thought I’d better come and tell you, 
along of your being the bail, sir.” 

“ Do you mean that you are going to 
leave Bullhampton altogether ?” 

“To leave it altogether, Mr. Fenwick. 
I ain’t doing no good here.” 

“ And why shouldn’t you do good ? 
Where can you do more good ?” 

“It can’t be good to be having words 
with father day after day.” 

“ But, Sam, I don’t think you can go 
away. You are bound by the magis- 
trates’ orders. I don’t speak for myself, 
but I fear the police would be after you.” 

“ And is it to go on allays — that a 
chap can’t move to better hisself, be- 
cause them fellows can’t catch the men 
as murdered old Trumbull? That can’t 


be law, nor yet justice.” Upo^i this 
there arose a discussion, in which the 
vicar endeavored to explain to the young 
man that as he had evidently consorted 
with the men who were, on the strong- 
est possible grounds, suspected to be the 
murderers, and as he had certainly been 
with those men where he had no busi- 
ness to be — namely, in Mr. Fenwick’s 
own garden at night — he had no just 
cause of complaint at finding his own 
liberty more crippled than that of other 
people. No doubt Sam understood this 
well enough, as he was sharp and intel- 
ligent ; but he fought his own battle, de- 
claring that as the vicar had not prose- 
cuted him for being in the garden, no- 
body could be entitled to punish him for 
that offence ; and that, as it had been 
admitted that there was no evidence 
connecting him with the murder, no 
policeman could have a right to confine 
him to one parish. He argued the 
matter so jvell that Mr. Fenwick was 
left without much to say. He was un- 
willing to press his own responsibility in 
the matter of the bail, and therefore 
allowed the question to fall through, 
tacitly admitting that if Sam chose to 
leave the parish there was nothing in 
the affair of the murder to hinder him. 
He went back, therefore, to the inex- 
pediency of the young man’s departure, 
telling him that he would rush right into 
the devil’s jaws. “ May be so, Mr. 
Fenwick,” said Sam, “but I’m sure I’ll 
never be out of ’em as long as I stays 
here in Bullhampton.” 

“ But what is it all about, Sam ?” 
The vicar, as he asked the question, had 
a very distinct idea in his own head as 
to the cause of the quarrel, and was 
aware that his sympathies were with the 
son rather than with the father. Sam 
answered never a word, and the vicar 
repeated his question: “You have quar- 
reled with your father before this, and 
have made it up. Why should not you 
make up this quarrel ?” 

“ Because he cursed me,” said Sam. 

“ An idle word, spoken in wrath ! 
Don’t you know your father well enough 
to take that for what it is worth ? What 
was it about ?” 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


149 


‘‘It was about Carry, then.” 

“ What had you said 

“ I said as how she ought to be let 
come home again, and that if I was to 
stay there at the , mill, I’d fetch her. 
Then he struck at me with one of the 
mill-bolts. But I didn’t think much o’ 
that.” 

“ Was it then he — cursed you ?” 

“ No ; mother came up, and I went 
aside with her. I told her as I’d go on 
speaking to the old man about Carry ; 
and so I did.” 

“ And where is Carry ?” Sam made 
no reply to this whatever. “ You know 
where she can be found, Sam ?” Sam 
shook his head, but didn’t speak. “ You 
couldn’t have said that you would fetch 
her, if you didn’t know where to find 
her.” 

“ I wouldn’t stop till I did find her, 
if the old man would take her back 
again. She’s bad enough, no doubt, but 
there’s others worse nor her.” 

“Where did you see her last ?” 

“ Over at Pycroft.” 

“ And whither did she go from Pycroft, 
Sam ?” 

“ She went to Lon’on, I suppose, Mr. 
Fenwick.” 

“ And what is her address in London ?” 
In reply to this Sam again shook his 
head. “Do you mean to seek her now?” 

“ What’s the use of seeking her, if I 
ain’t got nowhere to put her into ? 
Father’s got a house and plenty of room 
in it. Where could I put her ?” 

“ Sam, if you’ll find her and bring her 
to any place for me to see her. I’ll find 
a home for her somewhere. I will in- 
deed. Or, if I knew where she was. I’d 
go up to London to her myself. She’s 
not my sister — !” 

“ No, sir, she ain’t. The likes of you 
won’t likely have a sister the likes of 
her. She’s a — ” 

“ Sam, stop. Don’t say a bitter word 
of her. You love her.” 

“Yes, I do. That don’t make her not 
a bad ’un.” 

“ So do I love her. And as for being 
bad, which of us isn’t bad ? The world 
is very hard on her offence.” 

“ Down on it, like a dog on a rat.” 


“ It is not for me to make light of her 
sin, but her sin can be washed away as 
well as other sin. I love her too. She 
was the brightest, kindest, sauciest little 
lass in all the parish when I came here.” 

“Father was proud enough of her 
then, Mr. Fenwick.” 

“ You find her and let me know where 
she is, and I will make out a home for 
her somewhere ; that is, if she will be 
tractable. I’m afraid your father won’t 
take her at the mill.” 

“ He’ll never set eyes on her again, 
if he can help it. As for you, Mr. Fen- 
wick, if there was only a few more like 
you about, the world wouldn’t be so bad 
to get on in. Good-bye, Mr. Fenwick.” 

“ Good-bye, Sam, if it must be so.” 

“ And don’t you be afeard about me, 
Mr. Fenwick. If the hue-and-cry is out 
anyways again me. I’ll turn up. That I 
will — though it was to be hung afterward 
— sooner than you’d be hurt by anything 
I’d been a-doing.” 

So they parted, as friends rather than 
as enemies, though the vicar knew very 
well that the young man was wrong to 
go and leave his father and mother, and 
that in all probability he would fall at 
once into some bad mode of living. But 
the conversation about Carry Brattle had 
so softened their hearts to each other 
that Mr. Fenwick found it impossible to 
be severe. And he knew, moreover, 
that no severity of expression would 
have been of avail. He couldn’t have 
stopped Sam from going had he preach- 
ed to him for an hour. 

After that the building of the chapel 
went on apace, the large tradesman from 
Salisbury being quicker in his work than 
could have been the small tradesman 
belonging to Bullhampton. In Febru- 
ary there came a hard frost, and still 
the bricklayers were at work. It was 
said in Bullhampton that walls built as 
those walls were being built could never 
stand. But then it might be that these 
reports were spread by Mr. Grimes ; 
that the fanatical ardor of the Salisbury 
Baptist lent something to the rapidity 
of his operations ; and that the Bull- 
hampton feeling in favor of Mr. Fenwick 
and the Church Establishment added 


150 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


something to the bitterness of the prevail- 
ing criticisms. At any rate, the walls of 
the new chapel were mounting higher and 
higher all through February, and by the 
end of the first week in March there 
stood immediately opposite to the vicar- 
age gate a hideously ugly building, roof- 
less, doorless, windowless, with those 
horrid words, “New Salem, 186-,” 
legibly inscribed on a visible stone in- 
serted above the doorway — a thing alto- 
gether as objectionable to the eyes of a 
Church-of-England parish clergyman as 
the imagination of any friend or enemy 
could devise. We all know the abomi- 
nable adjuncts of a new building — the 
squalid, half-used heaps of bad mortar, 
the eradicated grass, the truculent mud, 
the scattered brickbats, the remnants of 
timber, the debris of the workmen’s 
dinners, the morsels of paper scattered 
through the dirt! There had from time 
to time been actual encroachments on 
the vicarage grounds, and Mrs. Fenwick, 
having discovered that the paint had 
been injured on the vicarage gate, had 
sent an angry message to the Salisbury 
Baptist. The Salisbury Baptist had 
apologized to Mr. Fenwick, saying that 
such things would happen in the build- 
ing of houses, etc., and Mr. Fenwick 
had assured him that the matter was of 
no consequence. He was not going to 
descend into the arena with the Salis- 
bury Baptist. In. this affair the Marquis 
of Trowbridge was his enemy, and with 
the marquis he would fight if there was 
to be any fight at all. He would stand 
at his gate and watch the work and 
speak good-naturedly to the workmen, 
but he was in truth sick at heart. The 
thing, horrible as it was to him, so fas- 
cinated him that he could not keep his 
mind from it. During all this time it 
made his wife miserable. She had lite- 
rally grown thin under the infliction of 
the new chapel. For more than a fort- 
night she had refused to visit the front 
gate of her own house. To and from 
church she always went by the garden 
wicket, but in going to the school she 
had to make a long round to avoid the 
chapel, and this round she made day 
after day. Fenwick himself, still hoping 


that there might be some power of fight- 
ing, had written to an enthusiastic arch- 
deacon, a friend of his, who lived not 
very far distant. The archdeacon had 
consulted the bishop — really troubled 
deeply about the matter — knd the bishop 
had taken upon himself, with his own 
hands, to write words of mild remon- 
strance to the marquis. “For the wel- 
fare of the parish generally,” said the 
bishop, “ I venture to make this sug- 
gestion to your lordship, feeling sure 
that you will do anything that may not 
be unreasonable to promote the comfort 
of the parishioners.” In this letter he 
made no allusion to his late correspond- 
ence with the marquis as to the sins of 
the vicar. Nor did the marquis in his 
reply allude to the former correspond- 
ence. He expressed an opinion that the 
erection of a place of Christian worship 
on an open space outside the bounds of 
a clergyman’s domain ought not to be 
held to be objectionable by that clergy- 
man ; and that, as he had already given 
the spot, he could not retract the gift. 
These letters, however, had been written 
before the first brick had been laid, and 
the world in that part of the country was 
of opinion that the marquis might have 
retracted his gift. After this, Mr. Fen- 
wick found no ground whatever on 
which he could fight his battle. He 
could only stand at his gateway and look 
at the thing as it rose above the ground, 
fascinated by its ugliness. 

He was standing there once, about a 
month or five weeks after his interview 
with Sam Brattle, just at the beginning 
of March, when he was accosted by the 
squire. Mr. Gilmore, through the win- 
ter — ever since he had heard that Mary 
Lowther’s engagement with Walter Mar- 
rable had been broken off — had lived 
very much alone. He had been pressed 
to come to the vicarage, but had come 
but seldom, waiting patiently till the time 
should come when he might again ask 
Mary to be his wife. He was not so 
gloomy as he had been during the time 
the engagement had lasted, but still he 
was a man much altered from his former 
self. Now he came across the road and 
spoke a word or two to his friend : “If 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


I were you, Frank, I should not think 
so much about it.” 

“ Yes, you would, old boy, if it touched 
you as it does me. It isn’t that the 
chapel should be there : I could have 
built a chapel for them with my own 
hands on the same spot, if it had been 
necessary.” 

“ I don’t see what there is to annoy 
you.” 

“This annoys me — that after all my 
endeavors there should be people here, 
and many people, who find a gratification 
in doing that which they think I shall 
look upon as an annoyance. The sting 
is in their desire to sting, and in my in- 
ability to show them their error, either 
by stopping what they are doing or by 
proving myself indifferent to it. It isn’t 
the building itself, but the double dis- 
grace of the building.” 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 

FEMALE MARTYRDOM. 

Early in February, Captain Marrable 
went to Dunripple to stay with his uncle, 
Sir Gregory, and there he still was when 
the middle of March had come. News 
of his doings reached the ladies at Loring, 
but it reached them through hands which 
were not held to be w'orthy of a perfect 
belief — at any rate, on Mary Lowther’s 
part. Dunripple Park is in Warwick- 
shire, and lies in the middle of a good 
hunting country. Now, according to 
Parson John, from whom these tidings 
came, Walter Marrable was hunting three 
days a week ; and as Sir Gregory himself 
did not keep hunters, Walter must have 
hired his horses : so said Parson John, 
deploring that a nephew so poor in purse 
should have allowed himself to be led 
into such heavy expense. “ He brought 
home a little ready money with him,” 
said the parson ; “ and I suppose he 
thinks he may have his fling as long as 
that lasts.” No doubt Parson John, in 
saying this, was desirous of proving to 
Mary that Walter Marrable was not 
dying of love, and was, upon the whole, 
leading a jolly life, in spite of the little 
misfortune that had happened to him. 


151 

But Mary understood all this quite as 
well as did Parson John himself, and 
simply declined to believe the hunting 
three days a week. She said not a word 
about it, however, either to him or to her 
aunt. If Walter could amuse himself, 
so much the better ; but she was quite 
sure that at such a period of his life as 
this he would not spend his money reck- 
.essly. The truth lay between Parson 
John’s stories and poor Mary’s belief 
Walter Marrable was hunting — perhaps 
twice a week, hiring a horse occasionally 
but generally mounted by his uncle. Sir 
Gregory. He hunted, but did so after a 
lugubrious fashion, as became a man 
with a broken heart, who was laden with 
many sorrows, and had just been sepa- 
rated from his lady-love for ever and 
ever. But still, when there came any- 
thing good in the way of a run, and 
when our captain could get near to 
hounds, he enjoyed the fun and forgot 
his troubles for a while. Is a man to 
know no joy because he has an ache at 
his heart ? 

In this matter of disappointed, and, as 
it were, disjointed, affection, men are very 
different from women, and for the most 
part much more happily circumstanced. 
Such sorrow a woman feeds, but a man 
starves it. Many will say that a woman 
feeds it because she cannot but feed it, 
and that a man starves it because his 
heart is of the starving kind. But in 
truth the difference comes not so much 
from the inner heart as from the outer 
life. It is easier to feed a sorrow upon 
needle-and-thread and novels than it is 
upon lawyers’ papers, or even the out- 
of-door occupations of a soldier home 
upon leave who has no work to do. 
Walter Marrable told himself again and 
again 'that he was very unhappy about 
his cousin, but he certainly did not suffer 
in that matter as Mary suffered. He 
had that other sorrow, arising from his 
father’s cruel usage of him, to divide his 
thoughts, and probably thought quite as 
much of the manner in which he had 
been robbed as he did of the loss of his 
love. 

But poor Mary was, in truth, very 
wretched. When a girl asks herself that 


f52 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON, 


question, What shall she do with her life ? 
it is so natural that she should answer it 
by saying that she will get married and 
give her life to somebody else. It is a 
woman’s one career, let women rebel 
against the edict as they may ; and 
though there may be word-rebellion here 
and there, women learn the truth early 
in their lives. And women know it later 
in life when they think of their girls ; 
and men know it, too, when they have to 
deal with their daughters. Girls, too, 
now acknowledge aloud that they have 
learned the lesson, and Saturday Re- 
viewers and others blame them for their 
lack of modesty in doing so — most un- 
reasonably, most uselessly, and, as far as 
the influence of such censors may go, 
most perniciously. Nature prompts the 
desire, the world acknowledges its ubiq- 
uity, circumstances show that it is rea- 
sonable, the whole theory of creation 
requires it ; but it is required that the 
person most concerned should falsely re- 
pudiate it, in order that a mock modesty 
may be maintained in which no human 
being can believe ! Such is the theory 
of the censors who deal heavily with our 
Englishwomen of the present day. Our 
daughters should be educated to be 
wives, but, forsooth ! they should never 
wish to be wooed ! The very idea is 
but a remnant of the tawdry sentiment- 
ality of an age in which the mawkish in- 
sipidity of the women was the reaction 
from the vice of that preceding it. That 
our girls are in quest of husbands, and 
know well in what way their lines in life 
should be laid, is a fact which none can 
dispute. Let men be taught to recog- 
nize the same truth as regards them- 
selves, and we shall cease to hear of the 
necessity of a new career for women. 

Mary Lowther, though she had never 
encountered condemnation as a husband- 
hunter, had learned all this, and was well 
aware that for her there was but one 
future mode of life that could be really 
blessed. She had eyes, and could see ; 
and ears, and could hear. She could 
make — indeed she could not fail to 
make — comparisons between her aunt 
and her dear friend, Mrs. Fenwick. She 
saw, and could not fail to see, that the 


life of the one was a starved, thin, poor 
life, which, good as it was in its nature, 
reached but to few persons and admitted 
but of few sympathies ; whereas the 
other woman, by means of her position 
as a wife and a mother, increased her 
roots and spread out her branches, so 
that there was shade, and fruit, and 
beauty, and a place in which the birds 
might build their nests. Mary Lowther 
had longed to be a wife, as do all girls 
healthy in mind and body ; but she had 
found it to be necessary to her to love 
the man who was to become her hus- 
band. There had come to her a suitor 
recommended to her by all her friends — 
recommended to her also by all out- 
ward circumstances — and she had found 
that she did not love him. For a while 
she had been sorely perplexed, hardly 
knowing what it might be her duty to 
do — not understanding how it was that 
the man was indifferent to her — doubt- 
ing whether, after all, the love of which 
she had dreamt was not a passion which 
might come after marriage, rather than 
before it — but still fearing to run so great a 
hazard. She had doubted, feared, and had 
hitherto declined, when that other lover 
had fallen in her way. Mr. Gilmore had 
wooed her for months without touching 
her heart. Then Walter Marrable had 
come and had conquered her almost in 
an hour. She had never felt herself dis- 
posed to play with Mr. Gilmore’s hair, 
to lean against his shoulder, to be touch- 
ed by his fingers — never disposed to wait 
for his coming or to regret his going. 
But she had hardly become acquainted 
with her cousin before his presence was 
a pleasure to her ; and no sooner had he 
spoken to her of his love than everything 
that concerned him was dear to her. 
The atmosphere that surrounded him 
was sweeter to her than the air else- 
where. All those little aids which a man 
gives to a woman were delightful to her 
when they came to her from his hands. 
She told herself that she had found the 
second half that was needed to make 
herself one whole ; that she had become 
round and entire in joining herself to 
him ; and she thought that she under- 
stood well why it had been that Mr. 




THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


153 


Gilmore had been nothing to her. As 
Mr. Fenwick was manifestly the hus- 
band appointed for his wife, so had 
Walter Marrable bepn appointed for her. 
And so there had come upon her a 
dreamy conviction that marriages are 
made in heaven. That question, wheth- 
er they were to be poor or rich, to have 
enough or much less than enough for the 
comforts of life, was no doubt one of 
much importance ; but in the few happy 
days of her assured engagement it was 
not allowed by her to interfere for a mo- 
ment with the fact that she and Walter 
were intended each to be the companion 
of the other as long as they two might 
live. 

Then by degrees — by degrees, though 
the process had been quick — had fallen 
upon her that other conviction, that it 
was her duty to him to save him from 
the burdens of that life to which she her- 
self had looked forward so fondly. At 
first she had said that he should judge 
of the necessity, swearing to herself that 
his judgment, let it be what it might, 
should be right to her. Then she had 
perceived that this was not sufficient — 
that in this way there would be no es- 
cape for him — that she herself must 
make the decision and proclaim it. Very 
tenderly and very cautiously had she 
gone about her task, feeling her way to 
the fact that this separation, if it came 
from her, would be deemed expedient by 
him. That she would be right in all this 
was her great resolve — that she might 
after all be wrong, her constant fear. 
She, too, had heard of public censors, 
of the girl of the period, and of the for- 
ward indelicacy with which women of the 
age were charged. She knew not why, 
but it seemed to her that the laws of the 
world around her demanded more of 
such rectitude from a woman than from 
a man ; and, if it might be possible to 
her, she would comply with these laws. 
She had convinced herself, forming her 
judgment from every tone of his voice, 
from every glance of his eye, from every 
word that fell from his lips, that this 
separation would be expedient for him. 
And then, assuring herself that the task 
should be hers, and not his, she had 


done it. She had done it, and, counting 
up the cost afterward, she had found her- 
self to be broken in pieces. That whole- 
ness and roundness in which she had 
rejoiced had gone from her altogether. 
She would try to persuade herself that 
she could live as her aunt had lived, and 
yet be whole and round. She tried, but 
knew that she failed. The life to which 
she had looked forward had been the 
life of a married woman ; and now, as 
that was taken from her, she could be 
but a thing broken, a fragment of hu- 
manity, created for use, but never to be 
used. 

She bore all this wejl for a while, and 
indeed never ceased to bear it well to the 
eyes of those around her. When Parson 
John told her of Walter’s hunting, she 
laughed and said that she hoped he would 
distinguish himself. When her aunt on 
one occasion congratulated her, telling 
her that she had done well and nobly, 
she bore the congratulation with a smile 
and a kind word. But she thought about 
it much, and within the chambers of her 
own bosom there were complaints made 
that the play which had been played be- 
tween him and her during the last few 
months should for her have been such a 
very tragedy, while for him the matter 
was no more than a melodrama, touched 
with a pleasing melancholy. He had 
not been made a waif upon the waters 
by the misfortune of a few weeks, by the 
error of a lawyer, by a mistaken calcu- 
lation — not even by the crime of his- 
father. His manhood was, at any rate, 
perfect to him. Though he might be a 
poor man, he was still a man with his 
hands free and with something before 
him which he could do. She understood, 
too, that the rough work of his life would 
be such that it would rub away, perhaps 
too quickly, the impression of his late 
love, and enable him hereafter to love 
another. But for her ! — for her there 
could be nothing but memory, regrets, 
and a life which would simply be a wait- 
ing for death. But she had done noth- 
ing wrong, and she must console herself 
with that, if consolation could there be 
found. 

Then there came to her a letter from 


154 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


Mrs. Fenwick, which moved her much. 
It was the second which she had re- 
ceived from her friend since she had 
made it known that she was no longer 
engaged to her cousin. In her former 
letter, Mrs. Fenwick had simply ex- 
pressed her opinion that Mary had done 
rightly, and had, at the same time, 
promised that she would write again, 
more at length, when the passing by of 
a few weeks should have so far healed 
the first agony of the wound as to make 
it possible for her to speak of the future. 
Mary, dreading this second letter, had 
done nothing to elicit it, but at last it 
came. And as it had some effect on 
Mary Lowther’s future conduct, it shall 
be given to the reader : 

“ Bullhampton Vicarage, Mar. 12, 186-. 
“ Dearest Mary ; 

“ I do so wish you were here, if it 
were only to share our misery with us. 
I did not think that so small a thing as 
the building of a wretched chapel could 
have put me out so much and made 
me so uncomfortable as this has done. 
Frank says that it is simply the feeling 
of being beaten, the insult not the injury, 
which is the grievance ; but they both 
rankle with me. I hear the click of the 
trowel every hour, and though ' I never 
go near the front gate, yet I know that 
it is all muddy and foul with brick- 
bats and mortar. I don’t think that 
anything so cruel and unjust was ever 
done before ; and the worst of it is that 
Frank, though he hates it just as much 
as I do, does preach such sermons to 
me about the wickedness of caring for 
small evils. ‘ Suppose you had to go to 
it every Sunday yourself.^’ he said the 
other day, trying to make me understand 
what a real depth of misery there is in 
the world. < I shouldn’t mind that half 
so much,’ I answered. Then he bade 
me try it ; which wasn’t fair, because he 
knows I can’t. However, they say it 
will all tumble down, because it has been 
built so badly. 

« I have been waiting to hear from 
you, but I can understand why you 
should not write. You do not wish to 
speak of your cousin, or to write without 


speaking of him. Your aunt has written 
to me twice, as doubtless you know, and 
has told me that you are well, only more 
silent than heretofore. Dearest Mary, 
do write to me and tell me what is in 
your heart. I will not ask you to come 
to us — not yet — because of our neighbor, 
but I do think that if you were here I 
could do you good. I know so well — 
or fancy that I know so well — the cur- 
rent in which your thoughts are running ! 
You have had a wound, and think that 
therefore you must be a cripple for life. 
But it is not so ; and such thoughts, if 
not wicked, are at least wrong. I would 
that it had been otherwise. I would that 
you had not met your cousin.” So 
would not I,” said Mary to herself, but 
as she said it she knew that she was 
wrong. Of course it would be for her 
welfare, and for his too, if his heart was 
as hers, that she should never have seen 
him.) « But because you have met him, 
and have fancied that you and he would 
be all in all together, you will be wrong 
indeed if you let that fancy ruin your 
future life. Or if you encourage your- 
self to feel that, because you have loved 
one man from whom you are necessarily 
parted, therefore you should never allow 
yourself to become attached to another, 
you will indeed be teaching yourself an 
evil lesson. I think I can understand 
the arguments with which you may per- 
haps endeavor to persuade your heart 
that its work of loving has been done, 
and should not be renewed j but I am 
quite sure that they are false and inhu- 
man. The Indian, indeed, allows her- 
self to be burned through a false idea of 
personal devotion ; and if that idea be 
false in a widow, how much falser is it 
in one who has never been a wife. 

“ You know what have ever been our 
wishes. They are the same now as 
heretofore ; and his constancy is of that 
nature that nothing will ever change it. 
I am persuaded that it would have been 
unchanged even if you had married your 
cousin, though in that case he wouia 
have been studious to keep out of your 
way. I do not mean to press his claims 
at present. I have told him that he 
should be patient, and that if the thing 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


155 


be to him as important as he makes it, 
he should be content to wait. He replied 
that he would wait. I ask for no word 
from you at present on this subject. It 
will be much better that there should be 
no word. But it is right that you should 
know that there is one who loves you 
with a devotion which nothing can alter. 

« I will, only add to this my urgent 
prayer that you will not make too much 
to yourself of your own misfortune, or 
allow yourself to think that because this 
and that have taken place, therefore 
everything must be over. It is hard to 
say who make the greatest mistakes — 
women who treat their own selves with 
too great a reverence, or they who do so 
with too little. 

« Frank sends his kindest love. Write 
to me at once, if only to condole with 
me about the chapel. 

“ Most affectionately yours, 

“Janet Fenwick. 

“ My sister and Mr. Ouickenham are 
coming here for Easter week, and I have 
still some hopes of getting my brother- 
in-law to put us up to some way of fight- 
ing the marquis and his myrmidons. I 
have always heard it said that there 
was no case in which Mr. Quickenham 
couldn’t make a fight.” 

Mary Lowther understood well the 
whole purport of this letter — all that was 
meant as well as all that was written. 
She had told herself again and again that 
there had been that between her and the 
lover she had lost — tender embraces, 
warm kisses, a bird-like pressure of the 
plumage — which alone should make her 
deem it unfit that she should be to an- 
other man as she had been to him, even 
should her heart allow it. It was against 
this doctrine that her friend had preach- 
ed, with more or less of explicitness, in 
her sermon. And how was the truth ? 
If she could take a lesson on that subject 
from any human being in the world, she 
would take it from her friend Janet 
Fenwick. But she rebelled against the 
preaching, and declared to herself that 
her friend had never been tried, and 
therefore did not understand the case. 
Must she not be guided by her own feel- 


ings, and did she not feel that she could 
never lay her head on the shoulder of 
another lover without blushing at her 
memories of the past ? 

And yet how hard was it all ! It was 
not the joys of young love that she re- 
gretted in her present mood, not the loss 
of those soft delights of which she had 
suddenly found herself to be so capable ; 
but that all the world should be dark and 
dreary before her. And he could hunt, 
could dance, could work — no doubt could 
love again ! How happy would it be for 
her if her reason would allow her to be 
a Roman Catholic and a nun ! 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

A lover’s madness. 

The letter from Mrs. Fenwick which 
the reader has just seen was the imme- 
diate effect of a special visit which Mr. 
Gilmore had made to her. On the loth 
of March he had come to her with a 
settled purpose, pointing out to her that 
he had now waited a certain number of 
months since he had heard of the rup- 
ture between Mary and her cousin, 
naming the exact period which Mrs. 
Fenwick had bade him wait before he 
should move again in the matter, and 
asking her whether he might not now 
venture to take some step. Mrs. Fen- 
wick had felt it to be unfair that her very 
words should be quoted against her as to 
the three or four months, feeling that she 
had said three or four instead of six or 
seven to soften the matter to her friend ; 
but nevertheless she had been induced 
to write to Mary Lowther. 

“ I was thinking that perhaps you 
might ask her to come to you again,” 
Mr. Gilmore had said when Mrs. Fen- 
wick rebuked him for his impatience. 
“If you did that, the thing might come 
on naturally.” 

“ But she wouldn’t come if I did ask 
her.” 

“ Because she hates me so much that 
she will not venture to come near me ?” 

“ What nonsense that is, Harry ! 1 1 

has nothing to do with hating. If I 
thought that she even disliked you, 1 


156 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


should tell you so, believing that it would 
be for the best. But of course if I asked 
her here just at present, she could not 
but remember that you are our nearest 
neighbor, and feel that she was pressed to 
come with some reference to your hopes.” 

“ And therefore she would not come ?” 

“ Exactly ; and if you will think of it, 
how could it be otherwise ? Wait till he 
is in India. Wait, at any rate, till the 
summer, and then Frank and I will do 
our best to get her .here.” 

« I will wait,” said Mr. Gilmore, and 
immediately took his leave, as though 
there were no other subject of conversa- 
tion now possible to him. 

Since his return from Loring, Mr. 
Gilmore’s life at his own house had been 
quite secluded. Even the Fenwicks had 
hardly seen him, though they lived so 
near to him. He had rarely been at 
church, had seen no company at home 
since his uncle the prebendary had left 
him, and had not dined even at the 
vicarage more than once or twice. All 
this had of course been frequently dis- 
cussed between Mr. and Mrs. Fenwick, 
and had made the vicar very unhappy. 
He had expressed a fear that his friend 
would be driven half crazy by a foolish 
indulgence in a hopeless passion, and 
had suggested that it might perhaps be 
for the best that Gilmore should let his 
place and travel abroad for two or three 
years, so that in that way his disap- 
pointment might be forgotten. But Mrs. 
Fenwick still hoped better things than 
this. She probably thought more of 
Mary Lowther than she did of Harry 
Gilmore, and still believed that a cure 
for both their sorrows might be found, 
if one would only be patient and the 
other would not despair. 

Mr. Gilmore had promised that he 
would wait, and then Mrs. Fenwick had 
written her letter. To this there came 
a very quick answer. In respect to the 
trouble about the chapel, Mary Lowther 
was sympathetic and droll, as she would 
have been had there been upon her the 
weight of no love misfortune. “ She had 
trust,” she said, “in Mr. Quickenham, 
who no doubt would succeed in harass- 
ing the enemy, even though he might be 


unable to obtain ultimate conquest. And 
then there seemed to be a fair prospect 
that the building would fall of itself, 
which surely would be a great triumph. 
And, after all, might it not fairly be hoped 
that the pleasantness of the vicarage gar- 
den, which Mr. Puddleham must see 
every time he visited his chapel, might 
be quite as galling and as vexatious to 
him as would be the ugliness of the 
Methodist building to the Fenwicks ? 

“ You should take comfort in the re- 
flection that his sides will be quite as 
full of thorns as your own,” said Mary ; 
“and perhaps there may come some 
blessed opportunity for crushing him 
altogether by heaping hot coals of fire 
on his head. Offer him the use of the 
vicarage lawn for one of his school tea- 
parties, and that, I should think, would 
about finish him.” ' 

This was all very well, and was written 
on purpose to show to Mrs. Fenwick 
that Mary could still be funny in spite 
of her troubles ; but the pith of the let- 
ter, as Mrs. Fenwick well understood, lay 
in the few words of the last paragraph : 

“ Don’t suppose, dear, that I am going 
to die of a broken heart. I mean to live 
and to be as happy as any of you. But 
you must let me go on in my own way. 
I am not at all sure that being married 
is not more trouble than it is worth.” 

That she was deceiving herself in say- 
ing this Mary knew well enough ; and 
Mrs. Fenwick, too, guessed that it was 
so. Nevertheless, it was plain enough 
that nothing more could be said about 
Mr. Gilmore just at present. 

“ You ought to blow him up and make 
him come to us,” Mrs. Fenwick said to 
her husband. 

“It is all very well to say that, but 
one man can’t blow another up as wo- 
men do. Men don’t talk to each other 
about the things that concern them 
nearly, unless it be about money.” 

“ What do they talk about, then 

“ About matters that don’t concern 
them nearly — ^game, politics and the state 
of the weather. If I were to mention 
Mary’s name to him, he would feel it to 
be an impertinence. You can say what 
you please.” 


/ 



V 



come in, Harry T — [Page 157.] 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


157 


Soon after this Gilmore came again to 
the vicarage, but he was careful to come 
when the vicar woulc} not be there. He 
sauntered into the garden by the little 
gate from the churchyard, and showed 
himself at the drawing-room window, 
without going round to the front door. 
“I never go to the front now,” said 
Mrs. Fenwick : “ I have only once been 
through the gate since they began to 
build.” 

“Is not that very inconvenient ?” 

“ Of course it is. When we came 
home from dining at Sir Thomas’ the 
other day, I had myself put down at the 
church gate and walked all the way round, 
though it was nearly pitch-dark. Do 
come in, Harry.” 

Then Mr. Gilmore came in and seated 
himself before the fire. Mrs. Fenwick 
understood his moods so well that she 
would not say a word to hurry him. If 
he chose to talk about Mary Lowther, 
she knew very well what she would say 
to him, but she would not herself intro- 
duce the subject. She spoke for a while 
about the Brattles, saying that the old 
man had suffered much since his son 
had gone from him. Sam had left Bull- 
hampton at the end of January, never 
having returned to the mill after his. visit 
to the vicar, and had not been heard of 
since. Gilmore, however, had not been 
to see his tenant ; and, though he ex- 
pressed an interest about the Brattles, 
had manifestly come to the vicarage with 
the object of talking upon matters more 
closely interesting to himself. 

“Did you write to Loring, Mrs. Fen- 
wick ?” he asked at last. ‘ 

“ I wrote to Mary soon after you were 
last here.” 

“ And has she answered you ?” 

“ Yes ; she wrote again almost at once. 
She could not but write, as I had said so 
much to her about the chapel.” 

“ She did not allude to— anything else, 
then ?” 

“ I can’t quite say that, Harry. I had 
written to her out of a very full heart, 
telling her what I thought as to her 
future life generally, and just alluding to 
our wishes respecting you.” 

“ Well r 


“ She said just what might have been 
expected — that for the present she would 
rather be let alone.” 

“ I have let her alone. I have neither 
spoken to her nor written to her. She 
does not mean to say that I have troubled 
her ?” 

“ Of course you have not troubled her, 
but she knows what we all mean.” 

“ I have waited all the winter, Mrs. 
Fenwick, and have said not a word. 
How long was it that she knew her 
cousin before she was engaged to him?” 

“What has that to do with it ? You 
know what our wishes are ; but, indeed, 
indeed, nothing can be done by hurrying 
her.” 

“She was engaged to that man and 
the engagement broken off, all within a 
month. It was no more than a dream.” 

“ But the remembrance of such dreams 
will not fade away quickly. Let us hope 
that hereafter it may be as a dream, but 
time must be allowed to efface the idea 
of its reality.” 

“ Time ! yes ; but cannot we arrange 
some plan for the future ? Cannot some- 
thing be done ? I thought you said you 
would ask her to come here ?” 

“ So I did, but not yet.” 

“ Why shouldn’t she come now? You • 
needn’t ask because I am here. There 
is no saying whom she may meet, and 
then my chance will be gone again.” 

“Is that all you know about women, 
Harry ? Do you think that the girl 
whom you love so dearly will take up 
with one man after another in that 
fashion ?” 

“ Who can say ? She was not very 
long in taking up, as you call it, with 
Captain Marrable. I should be happier 
if she were here, even if I did not see 
her.” 

“ Of course you would see her, and of 
course you would propose again, and of 
course she would refuse you.” 

“ Then there is no hope ?” 

“ I do not say that. Wait till the 
summer comes ; and then, if I can in- 
fluence her,, we will have her here. If 
you find that remaining at the Privets all 
alone is wearisome to you — ” 

“ Of course it is wearisome.” 


12 


158 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON, 


“ Then go up to London, or abroad, 
or anywhere for a change. Take some 
occupation in hand and stick to it.” 

« That is so easily said, Mrs. Fenwick.” 

“ No man ever did anything by moping, 
and you mope. I know I am speaking 
plainly, and you may be angry with me, 
if you please.” 

“ I am not at all angry with you, but I 
think you hardly understand.” 

“ I do understand,” said Mrs. ^^enwick, 
speaking with all the energy she could 
command; “and I am most anxious to 
do all that you wish. But it cannot be 
done in a day. If I were to ask her 
now, she would' not come ; and if she 
came, it would not be for your good. 
Wait till the summer. You may be sure 
that no harm will be done by a little 
patience.” ' 

Then he went away, declaring again 
that he would wait with patience, but 
saying, at the same time, that he would 
remain at home. “ As for going to Lon- 
don,” he said, “ I should do nothing 
there. When I find that there is no 
chance left, then probably I shall go 
abroad.” 

“It is my belief,” said the vicar that 
evening, when his wife told him what 
had occurred, “ that she will never have 
him — not because she does not like him, 
or could not learn to like him if he were 
as other men are, but simply because he 
is so unreasonably unhappy about her. 
No woman was ever got by that sort of 
puling and whining love. If it were not 
that I think him crazy, I should say that 
it was unmanly.” 

“ But he is crazy.” 

“ And will be still worse before he has 
done with it. Anything would be good 
now which would take him away from 
Bullhampton. It would be a mercy that 
his house should be burned down, or 
that some great loss should fall upon 
him. He sits there at home and does 
nothing. He will not even look after the 
farm. He pretends to read, but I don’t 
believe that he does even that.” 

“ And all because he is really in love, 
Frank.” 

“ I am very glad that I have never been 
in love with the same reality.” 


“You never had any need, sir. The 
plums fell into your mouth too easily.” 

“Plums shouldn’t be too difficult,” 
said the vicar, “ or they lose their 
sweetness.” 

A few days after this, Mr. Fenwick 
was standing at his own gate, watching 
the building of the chapel and talking to 
the men, when Fanny Brattle from the 
mill came up to him. He would stand 
there by the hour at a time, and had 
made quite a friendship with the foreman 
of the builder from Salisbury, although 
the foreman, like his master, was a dis- 
senter, and had come into the parish as 
an enemy. All Bullhampton knew how 
infinite was the disgust of the vicar at 
what was being done, and that Mrs. 
Fenwick felt it so strongly that she 
would not even go in and out of her own 
gate. All Bullhampton was aware that 
Mr. Puddleham spoke openly of the 
vicar as his enemy, in spite of the 
peaches and cabbages on which the 
young Puddlehams had been nourished ; 
and that the Methodist minister had 
more than once, within the last month 
or two, denounced his brother of the 
Established Church from his own pulpit. 
All Bullhampton was talking of the build- 
ing of the chapel — some abusing the 
marquis and Mr. Puddleham and the 
Salisbury builder ; others, on the other 
hand, declaring that it was very good 
that the Establishment should have a 
fall. Nevertheless, there Mr. Fenwick 
would stand and chat with the men, 
fascinated after a fashion by the misfor- 
tune which had come upon him. Mr. 
Packer, the marquis’ steward, had seen 
him there, and had endeavored to slink 
away unobserved — for Mr. Packer was 
somewhat ashamed of the share he had 
had in the matter — but Mr. Fenwick had 
called to him and had spoken to him of 
the progress of the building. 

“ Grimes never could have done it so 
fast,” said the vicar. 

“Well, not so fast, Mr. Fenwick, 
certainly.” 

“ I suppose it won’t signify about the 
frost ?” said the vicar. “ I should be 
inclined to think that the mortar will 
want repointing.” 


THE VICAR OF 

Mr. Packer had nothing to say to this. 
He was not responsible for the building. 
He endeavored to explain that the mar- 
quis had nothing to do with the work, 
and had simply given the land. 

“Which was all that he could do,” 
said the vicar, laughing. 

It was on the same day, and while 
Packer was still standing close to him, 
that Fanny Brattle accosted him. When 
he had greeted the young woman and 
perceived that she wished to speak to 
hjm, he withdrew within his own gate, 
and asked her whether there was any- 
thing that he could do for her. She had 
a letter in her hand, and after a little 
hesitation she asked him to read it. It 
was from her brother, and had reached 
her by private means. A young man 
had brought it to her when her father 
was in the mill, and had then gone off, 
declining to wait for any answer. 

“ Father, sir, knows nothing about it 
as yet,” she said. 

Mr. Fenwick took the letter and read 
it. It was as follows : 

“Dear Sister: 

“ I want you to help me a little, for 
things is very bad with me. And it is 
not for me, neither, or Fd sooner starve 
nor ax for a sixpence from the mill. But 
Carry is bad too, and if you’ve got a trifle 
or so, I think you’d be of a mind to send 
it. But don’t tell father, on no account. 
I looks to you not to tell father. Tell 
mother, if you will, but I looks to her 
not to mention it to father. If it be so 
you have two pounds by you, send it to 
me in a letter, to the care of 

“ Muster Thomas Craddock, 

“ Number 5 Crooked Arm yard, 

“ Cowcross street, 

“ City of London. 

“ My duty to mother, but don’t say a 
word to father, whatever you do. Carry 
don’t live nowhere there, nor they don’t 
know her. 

“Your affectionate brother, 

“ Sam Brattle.” 

“ Have you told your father, Fanny?” 

“ Not a word, sir.” 

“ Nor your mother ?” 

“ Oh yes, sir. She has read the letter, 


B ULLHAMPTON. 1 59 

and thinks I had better come to )^ou to 
ask what we should do.” 

“ Have you got the money, Fanny ?” 

Fanny Brattle explained that she had 
in her pocket something over the sum 
named, but that money was so scarce 
with them now at the mill that she could 
hardly send it without her father’s know- 
ledge. She would not, she said, be afraid 
to send it and then to tell her father after- 
ward. The vicar considered the matter 
for some time, standing with the open 
letter in his hand, and then he gave his 
advice. 

“ Come into the house, Fanny,” he 
said, “ and write a line to your brother, 
and then get a money order at the post- 
offlce for four pounds, and send it to 
your brother ; and tell him that I lend 
it to him till times shall be better with 
him. Do not give him your father’s 
money without your father’s leave. Sam 
will pay me some day, unless I be mis- 
taken in him.” 

Then Fanny Brattle with many grate- 
ful thanks did as the vicar bade her. 


chapter XXXIX. 

THE THREE HONEST MEN. 

The vicar of Bullhampton was — a 
“good sort of fellow.” In praise of him 
to this extent it is hoped that the reader* 
will cordially agree. But it cannot be 
denied that he was the most imprudent 
of men. He had done very much that 
was imprudent in respect to the Marquis 
of Trowbridge ; and since he had been 
at Bullhampton had been imprudent in 
nearly-everything that he had done re- 
garding the Brattles. He was well aware 
that the bold words which he had spoken 
to the marquis had been dragons’ teeth 
sown by himself, and that they had 
sprung up from the ground in the shape 
of the odious brick building which now 
stood immediately in face of his own 
vicarage gate. Though he would smile 
and be droll and talk to the workmen, he 
hated that building quite as bitterly as 
did his wife. And now in regard to the 
Brattles there came upon him a great 
trouble. About a week after he had lent 


i6o 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


the four pounds to Fanny on Sam’s be- 
half, there came to him a dirty note from 
Salisbury, written by Sam himself, in 
which he was told that Carry Brattle was 
now at the Three Honest Men, a public- 
house in one of the suburbs of that city, 
waiting there till Mr. Fenwick should 
find a home for her, in accordance with 
his promise given to her brother. Sam, 
in his letter, had gone on to explain that 
it would be well that Mr. Fenwick should 
visit the Three Honest Men speedily, as 
otherwise there would be a bill there 
which neither Carry nor Sam would be 
able to defray. Poor Sam’s letter was 
bald, and they who did not understand 
his position might have called it bold. 
He wrote to the vicar as though the 
vicar’s coming to Salisbury for the re- 
quired purpose was a matter of course; 
and demanded a home for his sister with- 
out any reference to her future mode of 
life or power of earning her bread, as 
though it was the vicar’s manifest duty 
to provide such home. And then that 
caution in regard to the bill was rather a 
threat than anything else. If you don’t 
take her quickly from the Three Honest 
Men, there’ll be the very mischief of a 
bill for you to pay. That was the mean- 
ing of the caution, and so the vicar un- 
derstood it. 

But Mr. Fenwick, though he was im- 
' prudent, was neither unreasonable nor 
unintelligent. He had told Sam Brattle 
that he would provide a home for Carry, 
if Sam would find his sister and induce 
her to accept the offer. Sam had gone to 
work and had done his part. Having done 
it, he was right to claim from the vicar 
his share of the performance. And then 
was it not a matter of course that Carry, 
when found, should be without means to 
pay her own expenses ? Was it to be 
supposed that a girl in her position would 
have money by her ? And had not Mr. 
Fenwick known the truth about their 
poverty when he had given those four 
pounds to Fanny Brattle to be sent up 
to Sam in London? Mr. Fenwick was 
both reasonable and intelligent as to all 
this ; and, though he felt that he was in 
trouble, did not for a moment think of 
denying his responsibility or evading the 


performance of his promise. He must 
find a home for poor Carry, and pay 
any bill at the Three Honest Men 
which he might find standing there in 
her name. 

Of course he told his trouble^ to his 
wife, and of course he was scolded for 
the promise he had given ; “'But, my 
dear Frank, if for her, why not for others ? 
and how is it possible ?” 

“ For her, and not for others, because 
she is an old friend, a neighbor’s child 
and one of the parish.” That question 
was easily answered. 

“ But how is it possible, Frank ? Of 
course one would do anything that is 
possible to save her. What I mean is, 
that one would do it for all of them if 
only it were possible.” 

“If you can do it for one, will not 
even that be much ?” 

“ But what is to be done ? Who 
will take her ? Will she go into a re- 
formatory ?” 

“ I fear not.” 

“ There are so many, and I do not 
know how they are to be treated except 
in a body. Where can you find a home 
for her ?” 

“ She has a married sister, Janet.” 

“ Who would not speak to her or let 
her inside the door of her house ! Surely, 
Frank, you know the unforgiving nature 
of women of that class for such sin as 
poor Carry Brattle’s ?” 

“ I wonder whether they ever say 
their prayers ?” said the vicar. 

“ Of course they do. Mrs. Jay, no 
doubt, is a religious woman. But it is 
permitted to them not to forgive that sin.” 

“ By what law ?” 

“ By the law of custom. It is all very 
well, Frank, but you can’t fight against 
it. At any rate, you can’t ignore it till 
it has been fought against and conquered. 
And it is useful. It keeps women from 
going astray.” 

“You think, then, that nothing should 
be done for this poor creature who fell 
so piteously with so small a sin ?” 

“ I have not said so. But when you 
promised her a home, where did you 
think of finding one for her ? Her only 
fitting home is with her mother, and you 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


i6i 


know that her father will not take her 
there.” 

Mr. Fenwick said nothing more at that 
moment, not having clearly made up his 
mind as to what he might best do ; but 
he had before his eyes, dimly, a plan by 
which he thought it possible that he 
might force Carry Brattle on her father’s 
heart. If this plan might be carried out, 
he would take her to the mill-house and 
seat her in the room in which the family 
lived, and then bring the old man in from 
his work. It might be that Jacob Brat- 
tie, in his wrath, would turn with violence 
upon the man who had dared thus to 
interfere in the affairs of his family, but 
he would certainly offer no rough usage 
to the poor girl. Fenwick knew the 
man well enough to be sure that he 
would not lay his hands in anger upon a 
woman. 

But something must be done at once — 
something before any such plan as that 
which was running through his brain 
could be matured and carried into execu- 
tion. There was Carry at the Three 
Honest Men, and, for aught the vicar 
knew, her brother staying with her — 
with his, the vicar’s, credit pledged for 
their maintenance. It was quite clear 
that something must be done. He had 
applied to his wife, and his wife did not 
know how to help him. He had sug- 
gested the wife of the ironmonger at 
Warminster as the proper guardian for 
the poor child, and his own wife had at 
once made him understand that this was 
impracticable. Indeed, how was it pos- 
sible that such a one as Carry Brattle 
should be kept out of sight and stowed 
away in an open hardware-shop in a 
provincial town ? The properest place 
for her would be in the country, on some 
farm ; and, so thinking, he determined 
to apply to the girl’s eldest brother. 

George Brattle was a prosperous man, 
living on a large farm near Fordingbridge, 
ten or twelve miles the other side of Salis- 
bury. Of him the vicar knew very little, 
and of his wife nothing. That the man 
had been married fourteen or fifteen years, 
and had a family growing up, the vicar did 
know, and, knowing it, feared that Mrs. 
Brattle of .Startup, as their farm was 


called, would not be willing to receive 
this proposed new inmate. But he would 
try. He would go on to Startup after 
having seen Carry at the Three Honest 
Men, and use what eloquence he could 
command for the occasion. 

He drove himself over on the next 
day to meet an early train, and was in 
Salisbury by nine o’clock. He had to 
ask his way to the Three Honest Men, 
and at last had some difficulty in finding 
the house. It was a small beershop in 
a lane on the very outskirts of the city, 
and certainly seemed to him, as he look- 
ed at it, to be as disreputable a house, 
in regard to its outward appearance, as 
ever he had proposed to enter. It was 
a brick building of two stories, with a 
door in the middle of it which stood 
open, and a red curtain hanging across 
the window on the left-hand side. Three 
men dressed like navvies were leaning 
against the door-posts. There is no 
sign, perhaps, which gives to a house of 
this class so disreputable an appearance 
as red curtains hung across the window ; 
and yet there is no other color for pot- 
house curtains that has any popularity. 
The one fact probably explains the other. 
A drinking-room with a blue or a brown 
curtain would offer no attraction to the 
thirsty navvy, who likes to have his thirst 
indulged without criticism. But, in spite 
of the red curtain, Fenwick entered the 
house and asked the uncomely woman 
at the bar after Sam Brattle. Was there 
a man named Sam Brattle staying there 
— a man with a sister 1 

Then were let loose against the un- 
fortunate clergyman the flood-gates of a 
drunken woman’s angry tongue. It was 
not only that the landlady of the Three 
’Honest Men was very drunk, but also 
that she was very angry. Sam Brattle 
and his sister had been there, but they 
had been turned out of the house. There 
had manifestly been some great row, and 
Carry Brattle was spoken of with all the 
worst terms of reproach which one wo- 
man can heap upon the name of another. 
The mistress of the Three Honest Men 
was a married woman, and, as far as 
that went, respectable ; whereas poor 
Carry was not married, and cei tainly not 


i 62 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


respectable. Something of her past his- 
tory had been known. She had been 
called names which she could not repu- 
diate, and the truth of which even* her 
brother on her behalf could not deny ; 
and then she had been turned into the 
street. So much Mr. Fenwick learned 
from the drunken woman, and nothing 
more he could learn. When he asked 
after Carry’s present address the woman 
jeered at him, and accused him of base 
purposes in coming after such a one. 
She stood with arms akimbo in the pas- 
sage, and said she would raise the neigh- 
borhood on him. She was drunk and 
dirty, as foul a thing as the eye could 
look upon ; every other word was an 
oath, and no phrase used by the lowest 
of men in their lowest moments was too 
hot or too bad for her woman’s tongue ; 
and yet there was the indignation of out- 
raged virtue in her demeanor and in her 
language, because this stranger had come 
to her door asking after a girl who had 
been led astray. Our vicar cared noth- 
ing for the neighborhood, and indeed 
cared very little for the woman at all, 
except in so far as she disgusted him ; 
but he did care much at iinding that he 
could obtain no clue to her whom he 
was seeking. The woman would not 
even tell him when the girl had left her 
house, or give him any assistance toward 
finding her. He had at first endeavored 
to mollify the virago by offering to pay 
the amount of any expenses which might 
have been left unsettled, but even on 
this score he could obtain no considera- 
tion. She continued to revile him, and 
he was obliged to leave her ; which he 
did, at last, with a hurried step, -to avoid 
a quart pot which the woman had taken 
up to hurl at his head upon some com- 
parison which he most indiscreetly made 
betw'een herself and poor Carry Brattle. 

What should he do now ? The only 
chance of finding the girl was, as he 
thought, to go to the police-office. He 
was still in the lane, making his way 
back to the street which would take him 
into the city, when he was accosted by 
a little child. “ You be the parson ?” 
said the child. Mr. Fenwick owned that 
he was a parson. “ Parson from Bull- 


’umpton?” said the child, inquiringly. 
Mr. Fenwick acknowledged the fact- 
“ Then you be to come with me. 
Whereupon Mr. Fenwick followed the 
child, and was led into a miserable little 
court, in which the population was squalid, 
thick and juvenile. “ She be here, at 
Mrs. Stiggs’,” said the child. Then the 
vicar understood that he had been watch- 
ed, and that he was being taken to the 
place where she whom he was seeking 
had found shelter. 


CHAPTER XL. 
trotter’s buildings. 

Lx the back room up stairs of Mrs. 
Stiggs’ house in Trotter’s Buildings the 
vicar did find Carry Brattle, and he found 
also that since her coming thither on the 
preceding evening — for only on the pre- 
ceding evening had she been turned away 
from the Three Honest Men — one of 
Mrs. Stiggs’ children had been on the 
look-out in the lane. 

“ I thought that you would come to 
me, sir,” said Carry Brattle. 

“ Of course I should come. Did I 
not promise that I would come ? And 
where is your brother ?” 

But Sam had left her as soon as he 
had placed her in Mrs. Stiggs’ house, and 
Carry could not say whither he had gone. 
He had brought her to Salisbury, and 
had remained with her two days at the 
Three Honest Men, during which time 
the remainder of their four pounds had 
been spent ; and then there had been a 
row. Some visitors to the house recog- 
nized poor Carry, or knew something of 
her story, and evil words were spoken. 
There had been a fight, and Sam had 
thrashed some man — or some half dozen 
men, if all that Carry said was true. She 
had fled from the house in sad tears, and 
after a while her brother had joined her 
— bloody, with his lips cut and a black 
eye. It seemed that he had had some 
previous knowledge of this woman who 
lived in Trotter’s Buildings — had known 
her or her husband — and there he had 
found shelter for his sister, having ex- 
plained that a clergyman would call for 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


her and pay for her modest wants, and 
then take her away. She supposed that 
Sam had gone back to London, but he 
had been so bruised and mauled in the 
fight that he had determined that Mr. 
Fenwick should not see him. This was 
the story as Carry told it ; and Mr. 
Fenwick did not for a moment doubt its 
truth. 

“And now. Carry,” said he, “what is 
it that you would do ?” 

She looked up into his face — and yet 
not wholly into his face, as though she 
were afraid to raise her eyes so high — 
and was silent. His were intently fixed 
upon her as he stood over her, and he 
thought that he had never seen a sight 
more sad to look at. And yet she was 
very pretty — prettier, perhaps, than she 
had been in the days when she would 
come up the aisle of his church to take 
her place among the singers, with red 
cheeks and bright flowing clusteVs of 
hair. She was pale now, and he could 
see that her cheeks were rough — from 
paint, perhaps, and late hours and an ill 
life ; but the girl had become a woman, 
and the lines of her^ countenance were 
fixed and were very lovely, and there 
was a pleading eloquence about her 
mouth for which there had been no need 
in her happy days at Bullhampton. He 
had asked her what she would do. But 
had she not come there, at her brother’s 
instigation, that he might tell her what 
she should do ? Had he not promised 
that he would find her a home if she 
would leave her evil ways ? How was 
it possible that she should have a plan 
for her future life ? She answered him 
not a word, but tried to look into his 
face and failed. 

Nor had he any formed plan. That 
idea, indeed, of going to Startup had 
come across his brain — of going to 
Startup and of asking assistance from 
the prosperous elder brother. But so 
diffident was he of success that he hardly 
dared to mention it to the poor girl. 

“It is hard to say what you should 
do,” he said. 

“ Very hard, sir.” 

His heart was so tender toward her 
that he could not bring himself to pro- 


163 

pose to her the cold and unpleasant 
safety of a reformatory. He knew, as a 
clergyman and as a man of common 
s^nse, that to place her in such an es- 
tablishment would, in truth, be the 
greatest kindness that he could do her. 
But he could not do it. He satisfied 
his own conscience by telling himself 
that he knew that she would accept no 
such refuge. He thought that he had 
half promised not to ask her to go*lo any 
such place. At any rate, he had not 
meant that when he had made his rash 
promise to her brother ; and though the 
promise was rash, he was not the less 
bound to keep it. She was very pretty 
and still soft, and he had loved her .well 
Was it a fault in him that he was tender 
to her because of her prettiness and be- 
cause he had loved her as a child ? 
We must own that it was a fault. The 
crooked places of the world, if they are 
to be made straight at all, must be 
made straight after a sterner and a juster 
fashion. 

“ Perhaps you could stay here for a 
day or two ?” he said. 

“ Only that I’ve got no money.” 

“ I will see to that — for a few days, 
you know. And I was thinking that I 
would go to your brother George.” 

“ My brother George !” 

“Yes — why not ? Was he not always 
good to you?” 

“ He was never bad, sir ; only — ” 

“ Only what ?” 

“I’ve been so bad, sir, that I don’t 
think he’d speak to me, or notice me, or 
do anything for me. And he has got a 
wife, too.” 

“ But a woman doesn’t always become 
hard-hearted as soon as she is married. 
There must be some of them that will 
take pity on you. Carry.” She only 
shook her head. “ I shall tell him that 
it is his duty, and if he be an honest, 
God-fearing man, he will do it.” 

“ And should I have to go there ?” 

“ If he will take you — certainly. What 
better could you wish ? Your father is 
hard, and, though he loves you still, he 
cannot bring himself to forget.” 

“ How can any of them firget, Mr 
Fenwick ?” 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


164 

“ I will go out at once to Startup, and 
as I return through Salisbury I will let 
you know what your brother says.” She 
again shook her head. “At any rate, 
we must try. Carry. When things are 
difficult, they cannot be mended by peo- 
ple sitting down and crying. I will ask 
your brother, and if he refuses, I will 
endeavor to think of something else. 
Next^to your father and mother, he is 
certainly the first that should be asked, 
to look to you.” Then he said much to 
her as to her condition, preached to her 
the little sermon with which he had 
come prepared — was as stern to her as 
his nature and love would allow, though, 
indeed, his words were tender enough. 
He strove to make her understand that 
she could have no escape from the dirt 
and vileness and depth of misery into 
which she had fallen without the penalty 
of a hard, laborious life, in which she 
must submit to be regarded as one whose 
place in the world was very low. He 
asked her whether she did not hate the 
disgrace and the ignominy and the vile 
wickedness of her late condition. “Yes, 
indeed, sir,” she answered, with her eyes 
still only half raised toward him. What 
other answer could she make ? He would 
fain have drawn from her some deep 
and passionate expression of repentance, 
some fervid promise of future rectitude, 
some eager offer to bear all other hard- 
ships, so that she might be saved from 
a renewal of the past misery. But he 
knew that no such eloquence, no such 
energy, no such ecstasy, would be forth- 
coming. And he knew, also, that burn- 
able, contrite and wretched as was the girl 
now, the nature within her bosom was 
not changed. Were he to place her in 
a reformatory, she would not stay there. 
Were he to make arrangements with 
Mrs. Stiggs, who in her way seemed to 
be a decent, hard-working woman — to 
make arrangements for her board and 
lodging, with some collateral regulations 
as to occupation, needlework and the 
like — she would not adhere to them. 
The change from a life of fevered though 
most miserable excitement to one of dull, 
pleasureless and utterly uninteresting 
propriety, is one that can hardly be made 


without the assistance of binding control. 
Could she have been sent to the mill, 
and made subject to her mother’s soft- 
ness as well as to her mother’s care, 
there might have been room for confi- 
dent hope. And then, too — but let not 
the reader read this amiss — because she 
was pretty and might be made bright 
again, and because he was young and 
because he loved her, he longed, were it 
possible, to make her paths pleasant for 
her. Her fall, her first fall, had been 
piteous to him, rather than odious. He, 
too, would have liked to get hold of the 
man and to have left him without a sound 
limb within his skin — to have left him 
pretty nearly without a skin at all ; but 
that work had fallen into the miller’s 
hands, who had done it fairly well. And, 
moreover, it would hardly have fitted 
the vicar. But, as regarded Carry her- 
self, when he thought of her in his sol- 
itary rambles, he would build little cas- 
tles in the air on her behalf, in which 
her life should be anything but one of 
sackcloth and ashes. He would find for 
her some loving husband, who should 
know and should ^have forgiven the sin 
which had hardly been a sin, and she 
should be a loving wife with loving 
children. Perhaps, too, he would add 
to this, as he built his castles, the 
sweet smiles of affectionate gratitude 
with which he himself would be received 
when he visited her happy hearth. But 
he knew that these were castles in the 
air, and he endeavored to throw them 
all behind him as he preached his ser- 
mon. Nevertheless he was very tender 
with her, and treated her not at all as 
he would have done an ugly young pa- 
rishioner who had turned thief upon his 
hands. 

“ And now. Carry,” he said, as he left 
her, “ I will get a gig in the town and 
drive over to your brother. We can but 
try it. I am clear as to this, that the 
best thing for you will be to be among 
your own people.” 

“ I suppose it would, sir, but I don’t 
think she’ll ever be brought to have 
me.” 

“ We will try, at any rate. And if 
she will have you, you must remember 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


165 


that you must not eat the bread of idle- 
ness. You must be prepared to work 
for your living.” 

“ I don’t want to be idle, sir.” Then 
he took her by the hand and pressed it, 
and bade God bless her, and gave her 
a little money, in order that she might 
make some first payment to Mrs. Stiggs. 
“ I’m sure I don’t know why you should 
do all this for the likes of me, sir,” said 
the girl, bursting into tears. The vicar 
did not tell ’her that he did it because 
she was gracious in his eyes, and ‘per- 
haps was not aware of the fact himself. 

He went to the Dragon of Wantley, 
and there procured a gig. He had a 
contest in the inn-yard before they would 
let him have the gig without a man to 
drive ^him ; but he managed it at last, 
fearing that the driver might learn some- 
thing of his errand. He had never been 
at Startup Farm before, and knew very 
little of the man he was going to see on so 
very delicate a mission ; but he did know 
that George Brattle was prosperous, and 
that in early life he had been a good son. 
His last interview with the farmer had 
had reference to the matter of bail re- 
quired for Sam, and on that occasion 
the brother had, with some persuasion, 
done as he was asked. George Brattle 
had contrived to win for himself a wife 
from the Fordingbridge side of the coun- 
try who had had a little money ; and as 
he, too, had carried away from the mill 
a little money in his father’s prosperous 
days, he had done very well. He paid 
his rent to the day, owed no man any- 
thing, and went to church every other 
Sunday, eschewing the bad example set 
to him by his father in matters of religion. 
He was hard-fisted, ignorant and self- 
confident, knowing much about corn and 
the grinding of it, knowing something 
of sheep and the shearing of them, know- 
ing also how to get the worth of his ten 
or eleven shillings a week out of the 
bones of the rural laborers ; but know- 
ing very little else. Of all this Fenwick 
was aware, and, in spite of that church- 
going twice a month, rated the son as 
inferior to the father, for about the old 
miller there was a stubborn constancy 
which almost amounted to heroism. 


With such a man as was this George 
Brattle, how was he to preach a doctrine 
of true human charity with any chance 
of success ? But the man was one who 
was pervious to ideas of duty, and might 
probably be pervious to feelings of fam- 
ily respect. And he had been good to 
his father and mother, regarding with 
something of true veneration the nest 
from which he had sprung. The vicar 
did not like the task before him, dread- 
ing the disappointment which failure 
would produce ; but he was not the man 
to shrink from any work which he had 
resolved to undertake, and drove gallant- 
ly into the farmyard, though he saw both 
the farmer and his wife standing at the 
back door of the house. 


CHAPTER XLI. 

STARTUP FARM. 

Farmer Brattle — who was a stout 
man about thirty-eight years of age, but 
looking as though he were nearly ten 
years older — came up to the vicar, touch- 
ing his hat, and then putting his hand 
out in greeting ; 

“ This be a pleasure something like. 
Muster Fenwick, to see thee here at 
Startup. This be my wife. Molly, thou 
hast never seen Muster Fenwick from 
Bull’umpton. This be our vicar, as 
mother and Fanny says is the pick of all 
the parsons in Wiltshire.” 

Then Mr. Fenwick got down and 
walked into the spacious kitchen, where 
he was cordially welcomed by the stout 
mistress of Startup Farm. 

He was very anxious to begin his 
story to the brother alone. Indeed, as 
to that, his mind was quite made up, 
but Mrs. Brattle, who within the doors 
of that house held a position at any rate 
equal to that of her husband, did not 
seem disposed to give him the oppor- 
tunity. She understood well enough 
that Mr. Fenwick had not come over 
from Bullhampton to shake hands with 
her husband and to say a few civil words. 
He must have business, and that busi- 
ness must be about the Brattle family. 
Old Brattle was supposed to be in money 


i66 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


difficulties, and was not this an embassy 
in search of money? Now, Mrs. George 
Brattle, who had been born a Huggins, 
was very desirous that none of the Hug- 
gins money should be sent into the 
parish of Bullhampton. When, there- 
fore, Mr. Fenwick asked the farmer to 
step out with him for a moment, Mrs. 
George Brattle looked very grave and 
took her husband apart and whispered a 
word of caution in his ear : 

“ It’s about the mill, George ; and 
don’t you do nothing till you’ve spoke 
to me.” 

Then there came a stolid look, almost 
of grief, upon George’s face. There had 
been a word or two before this between 
him and the wife of his bosom as to the 
affairs of the mill. 

“ I’ve just been seeing somebody at 
Salisbury,” began the vicar abruptly, as 
soon as they had crossed from the yard 
behind the house into the enclosure 
around the ricks. 

“ Some one at Salisbury, Muster Fen- 
wick ? Is it any one as I knows ?” 

“ One that you did know well, Mr. 
Brattle. I’ve seen your sister Carry.” 
Again there came upon the farmer’s face 
that heavy look, which was almost a 
look of grief, but he did not at once 
utter a word. “ Poor young thing !” con- 
tinued the vicar. “ Poor, dear, unfortu- 
nate girl !” 

“ She brought it on herself and on all 
of us,” said the farmer. 

“Yes, indeed, my friend. The light, 
unguarded folly of a moment has ruined 
her, and brought dreadful sorrow upon 
you all. But something should be done 
for her, eh ?” 

Still the brother said nothing. 

“You will help. I’m sure, to rescue 
her from the infamy into which she must 
fall if none help her ?” 

“If there’s money wanted to get her 
into any of them places — ” began the 
farmer. 

“It isn’t that ; it isn’t that, at any 
rate, as yet.” 

« What be it, then ?” 

“ The personal countenance and 
friendship of some friend that loves her. 
You love your sister, Mr. Brattle?” 


“ I don’t know as I does, Muster 
Fenwick.” 

“ You used to, and you must still pity 
her.” 

“ She’s been and wellnigh broke the 
hearts of all on us. There wasn’t one 
of us as wasn’t respectable, till she come 
up ; and now there’s Sam. But a boy 
as is bad ain’t never so bad as a girl.” 

It must be understood that in the ex- 
pression of this opinion Mr. Brattle was 
alluding not to the personal wickedness 
of the wicked of the two sexes, but to 
the effect of their wickedness on those 
belonging to them. 

“ And therefore more should be done 
to help a girl.” 

“I’ll stand the money. Muster Fen- 
wick, if it ain’t much.” 

“ What is wanted is a home in* your 
own house.” 

“ Here ! — at Startup ?” 

“Yes, here — at Startup. Your father 
will not take her.” 

“ Neither won’t I. But it ain’t me in 
such a matter as this. You ask my 
missus and see what she’ll say. Be- 
sides, Muster Fenwick, it’s clean out of 
all reason.” 

“ Out of all reason to help a sister ?” 

“ So it be. Sister, indeed ! Why 
did she go and make — I won’t say 
what she’s made of herself. Ain’t she 
brought trouble and sorrow enough upon 
us ? Have her here ! Why, I’m that 
angry with her I shouldn’t be keeping 
my hands off her. Why didn’t she keep 
herself to herself and not disgrace the 
whole family 

Nevertheless, in spite of these strong 
expressions of opinion, Mr. Fenwick, by 
the dint of the bitter words .wJnch he 
spoke in reference to the brother’s duty 
as a Christian, did get leave from the 
farmer to make the proposition to Mrs. 
George Brattle — such permission as 
would have bound the brother to accept 
Carry, providing that Mrs. George would 
also consent to accept her. But even 
this permission was accompanied by an 
assurance that it would not have been 
given had he not felt perfectly convinced 
that his wife would not listen for a mo- 
ment to the scheme. He spoke of his 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


167 


wife almost with awe when Mr. Fenwick 
left him to make this second attack. 
“ She has never had nothing to say to 
none sich as that,” said the farmer, 
shaking his head, as he alluded both to 
his wife and to his sister; “and I ain’t 
sure as she’ll be first-rate civil to any 
one as mentions sich in her hearing.” 

But Mr. Fenwick persevered, in spite 
even of his caution. When the vicar 
re-entered the house, Mrs. George Brat- 
tle had retired to her parlor, and the 
kitchen was in the hands of the maid- 
servant. He followed the lady, how- 
ever, and found that she had been at the 
trouble, since he had seen her last, of 
putting on a clean cap on his behalf. 
He began at once, jumping again into 
the middle of things by a reference to 
her husband. 

“ Mrs'. Brattle,” he said, “ your hus- 
band and I have been talking about his 
poor sister Carry.” 

“ The least said the soonest mended 
about that one, I’m afeard,” said the 
dame. 

“ Indeed, I agree with you. Were she 
once placed in safe and kind hands, the 
less then said the better. She has left 
the life she was leading — ” 

“ They never leaves it,” said the 
dame. 

“ It is so seldom that an opportunity 
is given them. Poor Carry is at the 
present moment most anxious to be 
placed somewhere out of danger.” 

“Mr. Fenwick, if you ask me. I’d 
rather not talk about her : I would in- 
deed. She’s been and brought a slur 
upon us all, the vile thing ! If you ask 
me, Mr. Fenwick, there ain’t nothing 
too bad for her.” 

Fenwick, who, on the other hand, 
thought that there could be hardly any- 
thing too good for his poor penitent, 
was beginning to be angry with the wo- 
man. Of course he made in his own 
mind those comparisons which are com- 
mon to us all on such occasions. What 
was the great virtue of this fat, well-fed, 
selfish, ignorant woman before him, that 
she should turn up her nose at a sister 
who had been unfortunate Was it not 
an abominable case of the Pharisee 


thanking the Lord that he was not such 
a one as the Publican — whereas the 
Publican was in a fair way to heaven ? 

“Surely you would have her saved, 
if it be possible to save her ?” said the 
vicar. 

“ I don’t know about saving. If such 
as them is to be made all’s one as others 
as have always been decent. I’m sure 
I don’t know who it is as isn’t to be 
saved.” 

“ Have you never read of Mary Mag- 
dalen, Mrs. Brattle ?” 

“Yes, I have, Mr. Fenwick. Perhaps 
she hadn’t got ho father nor brothers 
and sisters and sisters-in-law as would 
be pretty well broken-hearted when her 
vileness would be cast up agen’ ’em. 
Perhaps she hadn’t got no decent house 
over her head afore she begun. I don’t 
know how that was.” 

“ Our Saviour’s tender mercy, then, 
would not .have been wide enough for 
such sin as that ?” This the vicar said 
with intended irony, but irony was throwm 
away on Mrs. George Brattle. 

“ Them days and ours isn’t the same, 
Mr. Fenw'ick, and you can’t make ’em 
the same. And our Saviour isn’t here 
now to say who is to be a Mary Mag- 
dalen and who isn't. As for Carry Brat- 
tle, she has made her bed and she must 
lie upon it. We sha’n’t interfere.” 

Fenwick was determined, how'everj 
that he w’ould make his proposition. It 
was almost certain now that he could do 
no good to Carry by making it, but he 
felt that it would be a pleasure to him 
to make this self-righteous woman know 
what he conceived to be her duty in the 
matter ; “ My idea was this — that you 
should take her in here and endeavor to 
preserve her from future evil courses.” 

“Take her in here?” shrieked the 
W'oman. 

“Yes, here. Who is nearer to her 
than a brother ?” 

“ Not if I know it, Mr. Fenwick ; and 
if that is what you have been saying to 
Brattle, I must tell you that you’ve come 
on a very bad errand. People, Mr. 
Fenwick, knows how to manage things 
such as that for themselves in their own 
houses. Strangers don’t usually talk 


l68 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON, 


about such things, Mr. Fenwick. Per- 
haps, Mr. Fenwick, you didn’t know as 
how we have got girls of our own, com- 
ing up. Have* her here ! at Startup ? 
I think I see her here !” 

“But Mrs. Brattle — ” 

“ Don’t Mrs. Brattle me, Mr. Fenwick, 
for I won’t be so treated. And I must 
tell you that I don’t think it over-decent 
of you — a clergyman, and a young man, 
too, in a way — to come talking of such 
a one in a house like this.” 

“ Would you have her starve or die 
in a ditch ?” 

“ There ain’t no' question of starving. 
Such as her don’t starve. As long as it 
lasts they’ve the best of eating and 
drinking — only too much of it. There’s 
prisons : let ’em go there if they means 
repentance. But they never does — never 
till there ain’t nobody to notice ’em any 
longer ; and by that time they’re mostly 
thieves and pickpockets.” 

“ And you would do nothing to save 
your own husband’s sister from such a 
fate ?” 

“ What business had she to be a sis- ' 
ter to any honest man ? Think of what 
she’s been and done to my children, who 
wouldn’t else have had nobody to be 
ashamed of. There never wasn’t one 
of the Hugginses who didn’t behave her- 
self — that is, of the women,” added Mrs. 
George, remembering the misdeeds of a 
certain drunken uncle of her own, who 
had come to great trouble in the matter 
of horseflesh. “And now, Mr. Fenwick, 
let me beg that there mayn’t be another 
word about her. I don’t know nothing 
of such women, nor what is their ways, 
and I don’t want. I never didn’t speak 
a word to such a one in my life, and I 
certainly won’t begin under my own roof. 
People knows well enough what’s good 
for them to do, and what isn’t, without 
being dictated to by a clergyman. You’ll 


excuse me, Mr. Fenwick, but Pll just 
make bold to say as much as that. 
Good-morning, Mr. Fenwick.” 

In the yard, standing close by the gig, 
he met the farmer again. 

“ You didn’t find she’d be of your way 
of thinking. Muster Fenwick ?” 

“ Not exactly, Mr. Brattle.” 

“ I knowed she wouldn’t. The truth 
is. Muster Fenwick, that young women 
as goes astray after that fashion is just 
like any sick animal, as all the animals 
as ain’t comes and sets upon immediate- 
ly. It’s just as well, too. They knows 
it beforehand, and it keeps ’em straight.” 

“It didn’t keep poor Carry straight.” 

“ And, by the same token, she must 
suffer, and so must we all. But, Muster 
Fenwick, as far as ten or fifteen pounds 
goes, if it can be of use — ” 

But the vicar, in his indignation, re- 
pudiated the offer of money, and drove 
himself back to Salisbury with his heart 
full of sorrow at the hardness of the 
world. What this woman had been say- 
ing to him was only what the world had 
said to her — the world that knows so 
much better how to treat an erring sin- 
ner than did our Saviour when on earth. 

He went with his sad news to Mrs. 
Stiggs’ house, and then made terms for 
Carry’s board, and lodging — at any rate 
for a fortnight. And he said much to 
the girl as to the disposition of her time. 

He would send her books, and she was 
to be diligent in needlework on tehalf 
of the Stiggs family. And then he v 
begged her to go to the daily service in 
the cathedral — not so much because he 
thought that the public worship was 
necessary for her, as that thus she would 
be provided with a salutary employment 
for a portion of her day. Carry, as she 
bade him farewell, said very little. Yes, 
she would stay with Mrs. Stiggs. That 
was all that she did say. 





PART VI. 


CHAPTER XLII. 

• MR. QUICKENHAM, Q. C. 

O N the Thursday in Passion week, 
which fell on the 6th of April, Mr. 
and Mrs. Quickenham came to Bullhamp- 
ton vicarage. The lawyer intended to 
take a long holiday — four entire days — 
and to return to London on the follow- 
ing Tuesday ; and Mrs. Quickenham 
meant to be very happy with her sister. 

“It is such a comfort to get him out 
of town, if it’s only for two days !” said 
Mrs. Quickenham; “and I do believe 
he has run away this time without any 
papers in his portmanteau.” 

Mrs. Fenwick, with something of 
apology in her tone, explained to her sis- 
ter that she was especially desirous of 
getting a legal opinion on this occasion 
from her brother-in-law. 

“ That’s mere holiday work,” said the 
barrister’s anxious wife. “ There’s noth- 
ing he likes so much as that ; but it is 
the reading of those horrible long papers 
by gaslight. I wouldn’t mind how much 
he had to talk, nor yet how much he had 
to write, if it wasn’t for all that weary 
reading. Of course he does have juniors 
with him now, but I don’t find that it 
makes much difference. He’s at it every 


night, sheet after sheet ; and though he 
always says he’s coming up immediately, 
it’s two or three before he’s in bed.” 

Mrs. Quickenham was three or four 
years older than her sister, and Mr. Quick- 
enham was twelve years older than his 
wife. The lawyer, therefore, was con- 
siderably senior to the clergyman. He 
was at the Chancery bar, and, after the 
usual years of hard and almost profitless 
struggling, had worked himself up into a 
position in which his income was very 
large and his labors never ending; Since 
the days in which he had begun to have 
before his eyes some idea of a future 
career for liimself, he had always been 
struggling hard for a certain goal — strug- 
gling successfully, and yet never getting 
nearer to the thing desired. A scholar- 
ship had been all in all to him when he 
left school ; and as he got it a distant 
fellowship already loomed before his 
eyes. That, attained, was only a step 
toward his life in London. His first 
brief, anxiously as it had been desired, 
had given no real satisfaction. As soon 
as it came to him it was a rung of the 
ladder already out of sight. And so it 
had been all through his life as he ad- 
vanced upward, making a business, tak- 
ing a wife to himself and becoming the 

169 



170 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


father of many children. There was 
always something before him which was 
to make him happy when he reached it. 
His gown was of silk, and his income 
almost greater than his desires ; but he 
would fain sit upon the Bench, and have 
at any rate his evenings for his own en- 
joyment. He firmly believed now that 
that had been the object of his constant 
ambition ; though, could he retrace his 
thoughts as a young man, he would find 
that, in the early days of his forensic toils, 
the silent, heavy, unillumined solemnity 
of the judge had appeared to him to be 
nothing in comparison with the glittering 
audacity of the successful advocate. He 
had tried the one, and might probably 
. soon try the other. And when that time 
shall have come, and Mr. Quickenham 
shall sit upon his seat of honor in the 
new Law Courts, passing long, long 
hours in the tedious labors of conscien- 
tious painful listening, then he will look 
forward again to the happy ease of digni- 
fied retirement, to the coming time in 
which all his hours will be his own. 
And then, again, when those unfurnished 
hours are there, and with them shall have 
come the infirmities which years and toil 
shall have brought, his mind will run on 
once more to that eternal rest in which 
fees and salary, honors and dignity, wife 
and children, with all the joys of satis- 
fied success, shall be brought together 
for him in one perfect amalgam which he 
will call by the name of heaven. In the 
mean time, he has now come down to 
Bullhampton to enjoy himself for four 
days, if he can find enjoyment without 
his law-papers. 

Mr. Quickenham was a tall, thin man, 
with eager gray eyes and a long project- 
ing nose, on which, his enemies in the 
courts of law were wont to say, his wife 
could hang a kettle, in order that the un- 
necessary heat coming from his mouth 
might not be wasted. His hair was 
already grizzled, and in the matter of 
whiskers his heavy impatient hand had 
nearly altogether cut away the only in- 
tended' ornament to his face. He was a 
man who allowed himself time for noth- 
ing but his law-work, eating all his meals 
as though the saving of a few minutes 


in that operation were matter of vital 
importance, dressing and undressing at 
railroad speed, moving ever with a quick, 
impetuous step, as though the whole 
world around him went too slowly. He 
was short-sighted, too, and would tumble 
about in his unnecessary hurry, barking 
his shins, bruising his knuckles and 
breaking most things that were break- 
able, but caring nothing for his suffer- 
ings, either in body or in purse, so that 
he was not reminded of his awkwardness 
by his wife. An untidy man he was, 
who spilt his soup on his waistcoat and 
slobbered with his tea, whose fingers 
were apt to be ink-stained, and who had 
a grievous habit of mislaying papers that 
were most material to him. He would 
bellow to the servants to have his things 
found for him, and would then scold them 
for looking. But when alone he would 
be ever scolding himself because of the 
faults which he thus committed. A con- 
scientious, hard-working, friendly man 
he was, but one difficult to deal with ; 
hot in his temper, impatient of all stu- 
pidities, impatient often of that which he 
wrongly thought to be stupidity ; never 
owning himself to be wrong, anxious 
always for the truth, but often failing 
to see it — a man who would fret griev- 
ously for the merest trifle, and think 
nothing of the greatest success when it 
had once been gained. Such a one was 
Mr. Quickenham; and he was a man of 
whom all his enemies and most of his 
friends were a little afraid. Mrs. Fen- 
wick would declare herself to be much 
in awe of him ; and our vicar, though 
he would not admit as much, was always 
a little on his guard when the great bar- 
rister was with him. 

How it had come to pass that Mr. 
Chamberlaine had not been called upon 
to take a part in the cathedral services 
during Passion week cannot here be ex- 
plained ; but it was the fact that when 
Mr. Quickenham arrived at Bullhampton 
the canon was staying at the Privets. 
He had come over there early in the 
week — as it was supposed by Mr. Fen- 
wick with some hope of talking his 
nephew into a more reasonable state of 
mind respecting Miss Lowther, but, ac- 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


cording to Mrs. Fenwick’s uncharitable 
views, with the distinct object of escap- 
ing the long church services of the Holy 
week — and was to return to Salisbury on 
the Saturday. He was therefore invited 
to meet Mr. Quickenham at 'dinner on 
the Thursday. In his own city and 
among his own neighbors he would have 
thought it indiscreet to dine out in Pas- 
sion week ; but, as he explained to Mr. 
Fenwick, these things were very differ- 
ent in a rural parish. 

Mr. Quickenham arrived an hour or 
two before dinner, and was immediately 
taken out to see the obnoxious building ; 
while Mrs. Fenwick, who never would 
go to see it, described all its horrors to 
her sister within the guarded precincts 
of her own drawing-room. 

“ It used to be a bit of common land, 
didn’t it ?” said Mr. Quickenham. 

« I hardly know what is common land,” 
replied the vicar. “ The children used 
to play here, and when there was a bit 
of grass on it some of the neighbors’ 
cows would get it.” 

“It was never advertised to be let on 
building lease ?” 

“Oh dear, no! Lord Trowbridge 
never did anything of that sort.” 

“ I dare say not,” said the lawyer — 
“ I dare say not.” Then he walked 
round the plot of ground, pacing it, as 
though something might be learned in 
that way. Then he looked up at the 
building with his hands in his pockets 
and his head on one side. “ Has there 
been a deed of gift — perhaps a pepper- 
corn rent, or something of that kind 
The vicar declared that he was altogether 
ignorant of what had been done betw^een 
the agent of the marquis and the trustees 
to whom had been committed the build- 
ing of the chapel. “ I dare say nothing,” 
said Mr. Quickenham. “ They’ve been 
in such a hurry to punish you that they’ve 
gone on a mere verbal permission. What’s 
the extent of the glebe 

“ They call it forty-two acres.” 

“ Did you ever have it measured ?” 

“Never. It would make no differ- 
ence to me whether it is forty-one or 
forty-three.” 

“ That’s as may be,” said the law'yer. 


171 

“Its as nasty a thing as I’ve looked at 
for many a day, but it wouldn’t do to 
call it a nuisance.” 

“ Of course not. Janet is very hot 
about it, but as for me. I’ve made up my 
mind to swallow it. After all, what harm 
will it do me ?” 

“ It’s an insult — that’s all.” 

“ But if I can show that I don’t take 
it as an insult, the insult will be nothing. 
Of course the people know that their 
landlord is trying to spite me.” 

“ That’s just it.” 

“ And for a while they’ll spite me too, 
because he does. Of course it’s a bore. 
It cripples one’s influence, and to a cer- 
tain degree spreads dissent at the cost 
of the Church. Men and women will 
go to that place merely because Lord 
Trowbridge favors the building. I know 
all that, and it irks me ; but still it will 
be better to swallow it.” 

“ Who’s the oldest man in the parish ?” 
asked Mr. Quickenham — “ the oldest with 
his senses still about him.” 

The parson reflected for a while, and 
then said that he thought Brattle, the 
miller, was as old a man as there was 
there with the capability left to him of 
remembering and of stating what he 
remembered. 

“ And what’s his age — about ?” 

Fenwick said that the mjller was be- 
tween sixty and seventy, and had lived 
in Bullhampton all his life. 

“ A church-going man ?” asked the 
lawyer. 

To this the vicar was obliged to re- 
ply that, to his very great regret, old 
Brattle never entered a church. 

“Then I’ll step over and see him 
during morning service to-morrow,” said 
the lawyer. 

The vicar raised his eyebrows, but 
said nothing as to the propriety of Mr. 
Quickenham’s personal attendance at a 
place of worship on Good Friday. 

“ Can anything be done, Richard ?” 
said Mrs. Fenwick, ai^pealing to her 
brother-in-law. 

“Yes : undoubtedly something can be 
done.” 

“ Can there, indeed ? I am so glad. 
What can be done ?” 


172 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


“You can make the best of it,” re- 
plied Mr. Quickenham. 

“That’s just what I’m determined I 
won’t do. It’s mean-spirited, and so I 
tell Frank. I never would have hurt 
them as long as they treated us well ; 
but now they are enemies, and as ene- 
mies I will regard them. I should think 
myself disgraced if I were to sit down in 
the presence of the Marquis of Trow- 
bridge : I should indeed.” 

“ You can easily manage that by stand- 
ing up when you meet him,” said Mr. 
Quickenham. Mr. Quickenham could be 
very funny at times, but those who knew 
him would remark that whenever he was 
funny he had something to hide. His 
wife as she heard his wit was quite sure 
that he had some plan in his head about 
the chapel. 

At half-past six there came Mr. Cham- 
berlaine and his nephew. The conver- 
sation about the chapel was still con- 
tinued, and the canon from Salisbury 
was very eloquent, and learned also, 
upon the subject. His eloquence was 
brightest while the ladies were still in 
^ the room, but his learning was brought 
forth most manifestly after they had re- 
tired. He was very clear in his opinion 
that the marquis had the law on his side 
in giving the land for the purpose in 
question, even if it could be shown that 
he was simply lord of the manor, and 
not so possessed of the spot as to do 
what he liked in it for his own purposes. 
Mr. Chamberlaine expressed his opinion 
that, although he himself might think 
otherwise, it would be held to be for the 
benefit of the community that the chapel 
should be built, and in no court could 
an injunction against the building be 
obtained. 

“ But he couldn’t give leave to have 
it put on another man’s ground,” said 
the queen’s counsel. 

“ There is no question of another 
man’s ground here,” said the member 
of the chapter. 

“ I’m not sure of that,” continued 
Mr. Quickenham. “ It may not be the 
ground of any one man, but if it’s the 
ground of any ten or twenty, it’s the 
same thing.” 


“ But then there would be a lawsuit,” 
said the vicar. 

“ It might come to that,” said the 
queen’s counsel. 

“ I’m sure you wouldn’t have a leg 
to stand upon,” said the member of the 
chapter. 

“ I don’t see that at all,” said Gil- 
more. “ If the land is common to the 
parish, the Marquis of Trowbridge can- 
not give it to a part of the parishioners 
because he is lord of the manor.” 

“For such a purpose I should think 
he can,” said Mr. Chamberlaine. 

“And I’m quite sure he can’t,” said 
Mr. Quickenham. “All the same, it 
may be very difficult to prove that he 
hasn’t the right ; and in the mean time 
there stands the chapel, a fact accom- 
plished. If the ground had been bought 
and the purchasers had wanted a title, I 
think it probable the marquis would 
never have got his money.” 

“ There can be no doubt that it is 
very ungentlemanlike,” said Mr. Cham- 
berlaine. 

“There I’m afraid I can’t help you,” 
said Mr. Quickenham. “ Good law is 
not defined very clearly here in England, 
but good manners have never been de- 
fined at all.” 

“ I don’t want any one to help me on 
such a matter as that,” said Mr. Cham- 
berlaine, who did not altogether like Mr. 
Quickenham. 

“ I dare say not,” said Mr. Quicken- 
ham ; “and yet the question may be open 
to argument. A man may do what he 
likes with his own, and can hardly be 
called ungentlemanlike because he gives 
it away to a person you don’t happen to 
like.” 

“ I know what we all think about it in 
Salisbury,” said Mr. Chamberlaine. 

“ It is just possible that you may be a 
little hypercritical in Salisbury,” said 
Quickenham. 

There was nothing else discussed and 
nothing else thought of in the vicarage. 
The first of June had been the day now 
fixed for the opening of the new chapel, 
and here they were already in April. 
Mr. Fenwick was quite of opinion that 
if the services of Mr. Puddleham’s con- 



Mr. Qnicke 7 iham expresses his opinion . — [Page 172.] 


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THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


173 


gregation were once commenced in the 
building, they must be continued there. 
As long as the thing was a thing not yet 
accomplished it might be practicable to 
stop it, but there could be no stopping 
it when the full tide of Methodist elo- 
quence should have begun to pour itself 
from the new pulpit. It would then 
have been made the house of God — 
even though not consecrated — and as 
such it must remain. And now he was 
becoming sick of the grievance • and 
wished that it was over. As to going 
to law with the marquis on a question 
of common-right, it was a thing that he 
would not think of doing. The living 
had come to him from his college, and 
he had thought it right to let the bursar 
of Saint John’s know what was being 
done ; but it was quite clear that the 
college could not interfere or spend their 
money on a matter which, though it was 
parochial, had no reference to their prop- 
erty in the parish. It was not for the 
college, as patron of the living, to inquire 
whether certain lands belonged to the 
Marquis of Trowbridge or to the parish 
at large, though the vicar, no doubt, as 
one of the inhabitants of the place, might 
raise the question at law if he chose to 
find the money and could find the ground 
on which to raise it. His old friend the 
bursar wrote him back a joking letter, 
recommending him to put more fire into 
his sermons and thus to preach his ene- 
my down. 

“ I have become so sick of this 
chapel,” the vicar said to his wife that 
night, “that I wish the subject might 
never be mentioned again in the house.” 

“You can’t be more sick of it than I 
am,” said his wife. 

“ What I mean is, that I’m sick of it 
as a subject of conversation. There it 
is, and let us make the best .of it, as 
Ouickenham says.” 

“ You can’t expect anything like sym- 
pathy from Richard, you know.” 

“ I don’t want any sympathy. I want 
simply silence. If you’ll only make up 
your mind to take it for granted and to 
put up with it — as you had to do with 
the frost when the shrubs were killed, or 
with anything that is disagreeable but 


unavoidable — the feeling of unhappiness 
about it would die away at once. One 
does not grieve at the inevitable.” 

“But one must be' quite sure that it 
is inevitable.” 

“ There it stands, and nothing that we 
can do can stop it.” 

“Charlotte says that she is sure- 
Richard has got something in his head. 
Though he will not sympathize, he will 
think and contrive and fight.” 

“ And half ruin us by his fighting,” 
said the husband. “He fancies the land 
may be common-land, and not private 
property.” 

“ Then of course the chapel has no 
right to be there.” 

“ But who is to have it removed ? 
And if I could succeed in doing so, what 
would be said to me for putting down a 
place of worship after such a fashion as 
that ?” 

“Who could say anything against 
you, Frank?” 

“The truth is, it is Lord Trowbridge 
who is my enemy here, and not the 
chapel or Mr. Puddleham. I’d have 
given the spot for the chapel, had they 
wanted it and had I had the power to 
give it. I’m annoyed because Lord 
Trowbridge should know that he had 
got the better of me. If I can only 
bring myself to feel — and you too — that 
there is no better in it and no worse, I 
shall be annoyed no longer. Lord Trow- 
bridge cannot really touch me ; and could 
he, I do not know that he would.” 

“ I know he would.” 

“ No, my dear. If he suddenly had 
the power to turn me out of the living, I 
don’t believe he’d do it — any more.. than 
I would him out of his estate. Men in- 
dulge in little injuries who can’t afford 
to be wicked enough for great injustice. 
My dear, you will do me a great favor — 
the greatest possible kindness — if you’ll 
give up all outer and — as far as possible 
— all inner hostility to the chapel.” 

“ Oh, Frank !” 

“ I ask it as a great favor — for my 
peace of mind.” 

“ Of course I will.” 

“ There’s my darling ! It sha’n’t make 
me unhappy any longer. What ! a stupid 


174 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


lot of bricks and mortar, that, after all, 
are intended for a good purpose — to think 
that I should become a miserable wretch 
just because this good purpose is carried 
on outside my own gate ! Were it in 
my dining-room, I ought to bear it with- 
out misery.” 

“I will strive to forget it,” said his 
wife. And on the next mornihg, which 
was Good Friday, she walked to church 
round by the outside gate, in order that 
she might give proof of her intention to 
keep her promise to her husband. Her 
husband walked before her, and as she 
went she looked round at her sister and 
shuddered and turned up her nose. But 
this was involuntary. 

In the mean time, Mr. Quickenham 
was getting himself ready for his walk 
to the mill. Any such investigation as. 
this which he had on hand was much 
more compatible with his idea of a holi- 
day than attendance for two hours at the 
church service. On Easter Sunday he 
would make the sacrifice, unless a head- 
ache, or pressing letters from London, 
or Apollo in some other beneficent shape, 
might interfere and save him from the 
necessity. Mr. Quickenham, when at 
home, would go to church as seldom as 
was possible, so that he might save him- 
self from being put down as one tvho 
neglected public worship. Perhaps he 
was about equal to Mr. George Brattle 
in his religious zeal. Mr. George Brat- 
tle made a clear compromise with his. 
own conscience. One good Sunday 
against a Sunday that was not good left 
him, as he thought, properly poised in 
his intended condition of human infirm- 
ity. It may be doubted whether Mr. 
Quickenham’s mind was equally phil- 
osophic on the matter. He could hardly 
tell why he went to church or why he 
stayed away. But he was aware when 
he went of the presence of some unsat- 
isfactory feelings of imposture on his 
own part, and he was equally alive when 
he did not go to a sting of conscience in 
that he was neglecting a duty. But 
George Brattle had arranged it all in a 
manner that was perfectly satisfactory to 
himself. 

Mr Quickenham had inquired the 


way, and took the path to the mill along 
the river. He walked rapidly, with his 
nose in the air, as though it was a man- 
ifest duty, now that he found himself in 
the country, to get over as much ground 
as possible and to refresh his lungs 
thoroughly. He did not look much, as 
he went, at the running river or at the 
opening buds on the trees and hedges. 
When he met a rustic loitering on the 
path, he examined the man unconsciously, 
and could afterward have described, with 
tolerable accuracy, how he was dressed ; 
and he had smiled as he had observed 
the amatory pleasantness of a young 
couple who had not thought it at all ne- 
cessary to increase the distance between 
them because of his presence. These 
things he had seen, but the stream and 
the hedges and the twittering of the 
birds were as nothing to him. 

As he went he met old Mrs. Brattle 
making her weary way to church. He 
had not known Mrs. Brattle, and did not 
speak to her, but he had felt quite sure 
that she was the miller’s wife. Standing 
with his hands in his pockets on the 
bridge which divided the house from the 
mill, with his pipe in his mouth, was old 
Brattle, engaged for the moment in say- 
ing some word to his daughter Fanny, 
who was behind him. But she retreated 
as soon as she saw the stranger, and the 
miller stood his ground, waiting to be 
accosted, suspicion keeping his hands 
deep down in his pockets, as though re- 
solved that he would not be tempted to 
put them forth for the purpose of any 
friendly greeting. The lawyer saluted 
him by name, and then the miller touch- 
ed his hat, thrusting his hand back into 
his pocket as soon as the ceremony was 
accomplished. Mr. Quickenham ex- 
plained that he had come from the vicar- 
age, that he was brother-in-law to, Mr. 
F enwick, and a lawyer ; at each of which 
statements old Brattle made a slight 
projecting motion with his chin, as being 
a mode of accepting the information 
slightly better than absolute discourtesy. 
At the present moment Mr. Fenwick 
was out of favor with him, and he was 
not disposed to open his heart to visitors 
from the vicarage. Then Mr. Quicken- 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


175 


ham plunged at once into the affair of 
the day. 

“ You know that chapel they are build- 
ing, Mr. Brattle, just opposite to the par- 
son’s gate ?” 

Mr. Brattle replied that he had heard 
of the chapel, but had never, as yet, been 
up to see it. 

“ Indeed ! but you remember the bit 
of ground ?” 

Yes, the miller remembered the ground 
very well. Man and boy he had known 
it for sixty years. As fkr as his mind 
went, he thought it a very good thing 
that the piece of ground should be put 
to some useful purpose at last. 

“ I’m not sure but what you may be 
right there,” said the lawyer. 

“ It’s not been of use — not to nobody 
— for more than forty year,” said the 
miller. 

“And before that, what did they do 
with it ?” 

“ Parson as we had then in Bull’ump- 
ton kep’ a few sheep.” 

“ Ah ! just so. And he would get a 
bit of feeding off the ground ?” The 
miller nodded his head. “ Was that the 
vicar just before Mr. Fenwick?” asked 
the lawyer. 

“ Not by no means. There was Mus- 
ter Brandon, who never come here at 
all, but had a curate who lived away to 
Hinton. He come after Parson Small- 
bones.” 

“It was Parson Smallbones who kept 
the sheep ?” 

“ And then there was Muster Threep- 
away, who was parson wellnigh thirty 
years afore Muster Fenwick come. He 
died up at parsonage house, did Muster 
Threepaway.” 

“ He didn’t keep sheep ?” 

“ No ; he kep’ no sheep as ever I 
heerd tell on. He didn’t keep much 
barring hisself— didn’t Muster Threep- 
away. He had never no child, nor yet 
no wife, nor nothing at all, hadn’t Mus- 
ter Threepaway. But he was a good man 
as didn’t go meddling with folk.” 

“ But Parson Smallbones was a bit of 
a farmer ?” 

“ Ay, ay. Parsons in them days warn’t 
above a bit of farming. I warn’t much 


more than a scrap of a boy, but I re- 
member him. He wore a wig and old 
black gaiters ; and knew as well what 
was his’n and what wasn’t as any person 
in Wiltshire. Tithes was tithes then ; 
and parson was cute enough in taking ' 
on ’em.” 

“ But these sheep of his were his own, 

I suppose ?” 

“ Whose else would they be, sir ?” 

“And did he fence them in on that 
bit of ground ?” 

“There’d be a boy with ’em, I’m 
thinking, sir. There wasn’t so much 
fencing of sheep then as there be now. 
Boys was cheaper in them days.” 

“Just so; and the parson wouldn’t 
allow other sheep there ?” 

“ Muster Smallbone^ mostly took all 
he could get, sir.” 

“ Exactly. The parsons generally did, 

I believe. It was the way in which they 
followed most accurately the excellent 
examples set them by the bishops. But, 
Mr. Brattle, it wasn’t in the way of tithes 
that he had this grass for his sheep 

“ I can’t say how he had it, nor yet 
how Muster Fenwick has the meadows 
t’other side of the river, which he lets 
to Farmer Pierce; but he do have ’em, 
and Farmer Pierce do pay him the 
rent.” 

“ Glebe land, you know,” said Mr. 
Quicken ham. 

“ That’s what they calls it,” said the 
miller. 

“And none of the vicars that came 
after old Smallbones have ever done any- 
thing with that bit of ground ?” 

“ Ne’er a one on ’em. Muster Bran- 
don, I tell ’ee, never come nigh the place. 

I don’t know as ever I see’d him. It 
was him as they made bishop afterward, 
some’eres away in Ireland. He had a 
lord to his uncle. Then Muster Threep- 
away, he was here ever so long.” 

“ But he didn’t mind such things.” 

“ He never owned no sheep ; and the 
old ’oomen’s cows was let to go on the 
land, as was best, and then the boys 
took to playing hopscotch there, with a 
horse or two over it at times, and now 
Mr. Puddleham has it for his preaching. 
Maybe, sir, the lawyers might have a 


176 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


turn at it yet and the miller laughed 
at his own wit. 

“And get more out of it than any 
former occupant,” said Mr. Quickenham, 
who would indeed have been very loth 
to allow his wife’s brother-in-law to go 
into a lawsuit, but still felt that a very 
pretty piece of litigation was about to be 
thrown away in this matter of Mr. Pud- 
dleham’s chapel. 

Mr. Quickenham bade farewell to the 
miller, and thought that he saw a way to 
a case. But he was a man very strongly 
given to accuracy, and on his return to 
the vicarage said no word of his conver- 
sation with the miller. It would have 
been natural that Fenwick should have 
interrogated him as to his morning’s 
work ; but the vjcar had determined to 
trouble himself no further about his 
grievance, to say nothing further re- 
specting it to any man — not even to 
allow the remembrance of Mr. Puddle- 
ham and his chapel to dwell in his mind ; 
•and consequently held his peace. Mrs. 
Fenwick was curious enough on the sub- 
ject, but she had made a promise to her 
husband, and would at least endeavor to 
keep it. If her sister should tell her 
anything unasked, that would not be her 
fault. 


CHAPTER XLIII. 

EASTER AT TURNOVER CASTLE. 

It was not only at Bullhampton that 
this affair of the Methodist chapel de- 
manded and received attention. At Turn- 
over also a good deal was being said 
about it, and the mind of the marquis 
was not easy. As has been already 
told, the bishop had written to him on 
the subject, remonstrating with him as 
to the injury he was doing to the present 
vicar and. to future vicars of the parish 
which he, as landlord, was bound to 
treat with beneficent consideration. The 
marquis had replied to the bishop with 
a tone of stern resolve. The vicar of 
Bullhampton had treated him with scorn 
— nay, as he thought, with most unpar- 
donable insolence — and he would not 
spare the vicar. It was proper that the 


dissenters at Bulhampton should have a 
chapel, and he had a right to do what 
he liked with his own. So arguing with 
himself, he had written to the bishop very 
firmly, but his own mind had not been firm 
withiq him as he did so. There were mis- 
givings at his heart. He was a Church- 
man himself, and he was pricked with 
remorse as he remembered that he was 
spiting the Church which was connected 
with the State of which he was so emi- 
nent a supporter. His own chief agent, 
too, had hesitated, and had suggested 
that perhaps the matter might be post- 
poned. His august daughters, though 
they had learned to hold the name of 
Fenwick in proper abhorrence, neverthe- 
less were grieved about the chapel. Men 
and women were talking about it, and the 
words of the common people found their 
way to the august daughters of the house 
of Stowte. 

“Papa,” said Lady Caroline, “wouldn’t 
it, perhaps, be better to build the Bull- 
hampton chapel a little farther off from 
the vicarage ?” 

“ The next vicar might be a different 
sort of person,” said the Lady Sophie. 

“ No, it wouldn’t,” said the marquis, 
who was apt to be very imperious with 
his own daughters, although he was of 
opinion that they should be held in great 
awe by all the world — excepting only 
himself and their eldest brother. 

That eldest brother. Lord Saint George, 
was in truth regarded at Turnover as 
being, of all persons in the world, the 
most august. The marquis himself was 
afraid of his son, and held him in ex- 
treme veneration. To the mind of the 
marquis the heir-expectant of all the dig- 
nities of the house of Stowte was almost 
a greater man than the owner of them ; 
and this feeling came not only from a 
consciousness on the part of the fathei 
that his son was a bigger man than him- 
self — cleverer, better versed in the affairs 
of the world, and more thought of by 
those around them — but also to a certain 
extent from an idea that he who wo aid 
have all these grand things thirty oi 
perhaps even fifty years hence must be 
more powerful than one with whom tHMr 
possession would come to an end prob*- 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


177 


ably after the lapse of eight or ten years. 
His heir was to him almost divine. 
When things at the castle were in any 
way uncomfortable, he could put up with 
the discomfort for himself and his daugh- 
ters, but it was not to be endured that 
Saint George should be incommoded. 
Old carriage-horses must be changed if 
he were coming ; the glazing of the new 
greenhouse must be got out of the way, 
lest he should smell the paint ; the game 
must not be touched till he should come 
to shoot it. And yet Lord Saint George 
himself w'as a man who never gave him- 
self any airs, and who in his personal 
intercourse with the world around him 
demanded much less acknowledgment of 
his magnificence than did his father. 

And now, during this Easter week. 
Lord Saint George came down to the 
castle, intending to kill two birds with 
one stone — to take his parliamentary 
holiday and to do a little business with 
his father. -It not unfrequently came to 
pass that he found it necessary to re- 
press the energy of his father’s august 
magnificence. He would go so far as to 
remind his father that in these days 
marquises were not very different from 
other people, except in this, that they 
perhaps might have more money. The 
marquis would fret in silence, not daring 
to commit himself to an argument with 
his son, and would in secret lament over 
the altered ideas of the age. It was his 
theory of politics that the old distances 
should be maintained, and that the head 
of a great family should be a patriarch 
entitled to obedience from those around 
him. It was his son’s idea that every 
man was entitled to as much obedience 
as his money would buy, and to no more. 
This was very lamentable to the mar- 
quis ; but nevertheless his son was the 
coming man, and even this must be 
borne. 

“I’m sorry about this chapel at Bull- 
hampton,” said the son to the father 
after dinner. 

“ Why sorry, Saint George ? I thought 
you would have been of opinion that the 
dissenters should have a chapel.” 

“ Certainly they should, if they’re fools 
enough to want to build a place to pray 


in when they have got one already built 
for them. There’s no reason on earth 
why they shouldn’t have a chapel, see- 
ing that nothing that we can do will save 
them from schism.” 

“We can’t prevent dissent. Saint 
George.” 

“We can’t prevent it, because, in re- 
ligion, as in everything else, men like to 
manage themselves. This farmer or that 
tradesman becomes a dissenter because 
he can be somebody in the management 
of his chapel, and would be nobody in 
regard to the parish church.” 

“ That is very dreadful.” 

“ Not worse than our own people, 
who remain with us because it sounds the 
most respectable. Not one in fifty really 
believes that this or that form of worship 
is more likely to send him to heaven 
than any other.” 

“ I certainly claim to myself to be one 
of the few,” said the marquis. 

“No doubt ; and so you ought, my 
lord, as every advantage has been given 
you. But to come back to the Bull- 
hampton chapel : don’t you think we 
could move it away from the parson’s 
gate ?” 

“ They have built it. Saint George.” 

“ They can’t have finished it yet.” 

“You wouldn’t have me ask them to 
pull it down } Packer was here yester- 
day, and said that the framework of the 
roof was up.^’ 

“ What made them hurry it in that 
way ? Spite against the vicar, I suppose.” 

“ He is a most objectionable man. 
Saint George — most insolent, overbear- 
ing and unlike a clergyman. They say 
that he is little better than an infidel 
himself.” 

“We had better leave that to the 
bishop, my lord.” 

“We must feel about it, connected as 
we are with the parish,” said the marquis. 

“ But I don’t think we shall do any 
good by going into a parochial quarrel.” 

“It was the very best bit of land for 
the purpose in all Bullhampton,” said 
the marquis. “ I made particular in- 
quiry, and there can be no doubt of that. 
Though I particularly dislike that Mr. 
Fenwick, it was not done to injure him.” 


178 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


“It does injure him damnably, my 
lord.” 

“ That’s only an accident.” 

“And I’m not at all sure that we 
sha’n’t find that we have made a mistake.” 

“ How a mistake ?” 

“ That we have given away land that 
doesn’t belong to us.” 

“ Who says it doesn’t belong to us ?” 
said the marquis, angrily. A suggestion 
so hostile, so unjust, so cruel as this, 
almost overcame the feeling of veneration 
which he entertained for his son. “ That 
is really nonsense, Saint George.” 

“ Have you looked at the title-deeds ?” 

“The title-deeds are of course with 
Mr. Boothby. But Packer knows every 
foot of the ground, even if I didn’t know 
it myself.” 

“ I wouldn’t give a straw for Packer’s 
knowledge.” 

“ I haven’t heard that they have even 
raised the question themselves.” 

“ I’m told that they will do so — that 
they say it is common land. It’s quite 
clear that it has never been either let or 
enclosed.” 

“You might say the same of the bit 
of green that lies outside the park gate, 
where the great oak stands ; but I don’t 
suppose that that is common.” 

“ I don’t say that this is, but I do say 
that there may be difficulty of proof ; and 
that to be driven to the proof in such a 
matter would be disagreeable.” 

“ What would you do, then ?” 

“Take the bull by the horns, and 
move the chapel at our own expense to 
some site that shall be altogether un- 
objectionable.” 

“We should be owning ourselves 
wrong, Augustus.” 

“ And why not ? I cannot see what 
disgrace there is in coming forward hand- 
somely and telling the truth. When the 
land was given we thought it was our 
own. There has come up a shadow of 
a doubt, and sooner than be in the 
wrong we give another site and take all 
the expense. I think that would be the 
right sort of thing to do.” 

Lord Saint George returned to town 
two days afterward, and the marquis was 
left with the dilemma on his mind. Lord 


Saint George, though he would frequent- 
ly interfere in matters connected with the 
property in the manner described, would 
never dictate and seldom insist. He had 
said what he had got to say, and the 
marquis was left to act for himself But 
the old lord had learned to feel that he 
was sure to fall into some pit whenever 
he. declined to follow his son’s advice. 
His son had a painful way of being right 
that was a great trouble to him. And 
this was a question which touched him 
very nearly. It was not only that he 
must yield to Mr. Fenwick before the 
eyes of Mr. Puddleham and all the peo- 
ple of Bullhampton, but that he must 
confess his own ignorance as to the 
borders of his own property, and must 
abandon a bit of land which he believed 
to belong to the Stowte estate. Now, 
if there was a point in his religion as 
to which Lord Trowbridge was more 
staunch than another, it was as to the 
removal of landmarks. He did not 
covet his neighbor’s land, but he was 
most resolute that no stranger should, 
during his reign, ever possess a rood of 
his own. 


CHAPTER XLIV. 

THE MARRABLES OF DUN RIPPLE. 

“ If I were to go, there would be no- 
body left but you. You should remem- 
ber that, Walter, when you talk of going 
to India.” This was said to Walter 
Marrable at Dunripple by his cousin 
Gregory, Sir Gregory’s only son. 

“And if I were to die in India, as I 
probably shall, who will come next ?” 

“ There is nobody to come next for 
the title.” 

“ But for the property ?” 

“As it stands at present, if you and I 
were to die before your father and Uncle 
John, the survivor of them would be the 
last in the entail. If they, too, died, and 
the survivor of us all left no will, the prop- 
erty would go to Mary Lowther. But that 
is hardly probable. When my grand- 
father made the settlement on my father’s 
marriage, he had four sons living.” 

“ Should my father have the handling 


Who says it doesrCi belong to us V said the marquis^ angrily ?"' — [Page 178.] 








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THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


179 


of it, I would not give much for any- 
body’s chance after him,” said Walter. 

“If you were to marry there would, 
of course, be a new settlement as to 
your rights. Your father could do no 
harm except as your heir — unless, in- 
deed, he were heir to us all. My uncle 
John will outlive him, probably,” 

“ My uncle John will live for ever, I 
should think,” said Walter Marrable. 

This conversation took place between 
the two cousins when Walter had been 
alread)rtwo or three weeks at Dunripple. 
He had come there intending to stay over 
two or three days, and he had already 
accepted an invitation to make the house 
his home as long as he should remain in 
England. He had known but little of 
his uncle, and nothing of his cousin, be- 
fore this visit was made. He had con- 
ceived them to be unfriendly to him, 
having known them to be always un- 
friendly to his father. He was, of course, 
aware — very well aware now, since he 
had himself suffered so grievously from 
his father’s dishonesty — that the enmity 
which had reached them from Dunripple 
had been well deserved. Colonel Mar- 
rable had, as a younger brother, never 
been content with what he was able to 
extract from the head of the family, who 
was, in his eyes, a milch cow that never 
ought to run dry. With Walter Marra- 
ble there had remained a feeling adverse 
to his uncle and cousin, even after he 
had been forced to admit to himself how 
many and how grievous were the sins 
of his own father. He had believed that 
the Dunripple people were stupid and 
prejudiced and selfish ; and it had only 
been at the instance of his uncle, the 
parson, that he had consented to make 
the visit. He had gone there, and had 
been treated, at any rate, with affection- 
ate consideration. And he had found 
the house to be not unpleasant, though 
very quiet. Living at Dunripple there 
was a Mrs. Brownlow, a widowed sister 
of the late Lady Marrable, with her 
daughter, Edith Brownlow. Previous 
to this time, Walter Marrable had never 
even heard of the Brownlows, so little 
had he known about Dunripple ; and 
when he arrived there it had been neces- 


sary to explain to him who these people 
were. 

He had found his uncle. Sir Gregory, 
to be much such a man as he had ex- 
pected in outward appearance and mode 
of life. The baronet was old, and dis- 
posed to regard himself as entitled to all 
the indulgences of infirmity. He rose 
late, took but little exercise, was very 
particular about what he ate, and got 
through his day with the assistance of 
his steward, his novel, and occasionally 
of his doctor. He slept a great deal, and 
was never tired of talking of himself. 
Occupation in life he had none, but he 
was a charitable, honorable man, who 
had high ideas of what was due to others. 
His son, howler, had astonished Walter 
considerably. Gregory Marrable the 
younger was a man somewhat over forty, 
but he looked as though he were sixty. 
He was very tall and thin, narrow in the 
chest, and so round in the shoulders as 
to appear to be almost humpbacked. He 
was so short-sighted as to be nearly 
blind, and was quite bald. He carried 
his head so forward that it looked as 
though it were going to fall off He 
shambled with his legs, which seemed 
never to be strong enough to carry him 
from one room to another ; and he tried 
them by no other exercise, for he never 
went outside the house except when, on 
Sundays and some other very rare occa- 
sions, he would trust himself to be driven 
in a low pony-phaeton. But in one re- 
spect he was altogether unlike his father. 
His whole time was spent among his 
books, and he was at this moment en- 
gaged in revising and editing a very long 
and altogether unreadable old English 
chronicle in rhyme, for publication by 
one of those learned societies which are 
rife in London. Of Robert of Gloucester 
and William Langland, of Andrew of 
Wyntown and the Lady Juliana Berners, 
he could discourse, if not with eloquence, 
at least with enthusiasm. Chaucer was 
his favorite poet, and he was supposed 
to have read the works of Gower in 
English, French and Latin. But he was 
himself apparently as old as one of his 
own black-letter volumes, and as unfit 
for general use. Walter could hardly 


i8o 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


regard him as a cousin, declaring to him- 
self that his uncle, the parson, and his 
own father were, in effect, younger men 
than the younger Gregory Marrable. He 
was never without a cough, never well, 
never without various ailments and trou- 
bles of the flesh ; of which, however, he 
himself made but slight account, taking 
them quite as a matter of course. With 
such inmates the house no doubt would 
have been dull had there not been wo- 
men there to enliven it. 

By degrees, too, and not by slow de- 
grees, the new-comer found that he was 
treated as one of the family — found that, 
after a certain fashion, he was treated as 
the heir to the family. Between him and 
the title and the estate there were but 
the lives of four old men. Why had he 
not known that this w^as so before he 
had allowed himself to be separated from 
Mary Lowther ? But he had known noth- 
ing of it — had thought not at all about it. 
There had been another Marrable, of the 
same generation with himself, between 
him and the succession, who might marry 
and ^ have children, and he had not re- 
garded his heirship as being likely to 
have any effect — at any rate upon his 
early life. It had never occurred to him 
that he need not go to India because he 
would probably outlive four old gentle- 
men and become Sir Walter Marrable 
and owner of Dunripple. 

Nor would he have looked at the mat- 
ter in that light now, had not his cousin 
forced the matter upon him. Not a word 
was said to him at Dunripple about Mary 
Lowther, but very many words were said 
about his own condition. Gregory Mar- 
rable strongly advised him against going 
to India — so strongly that Walter was 
surprised to find that such a man would 
have so much to say on such a subject. 
The young captain, in such circum- 
stances, could not very well explain that 
he was driven to follow his profession in 
a fashion so disagreeable to him because, 
although he was heir to Dunripple, he 
was not near enough to it to be entitled 
to any allowance from its owner; but he 
felt that that would have been the only 
true answer when it was proposed to 
him to stay in England because he would 


some day become Sir Walter Marrable. 
But he did plead the great loss which 
he had encountered by means of his 
father’s ill-treatment of him, and , endeav- 
ored to prove to his cousin that there 
was no alternative before him but to 
serve in some quarter of the globe in 
which his pay would be sufficient for his 
wants. 

» Why should you not sell out or go 
on half-pay, and remain here and marry 
Edith Brownlow ?” said his cousin. 

“ I don’t think I could do that,” said 
Walter, slowly. 

“ Why not ? There is nothing my 
father would like so much.” Then he 
was silent for a while, but, as his cousin 
made no further immediate reply, Gre- 
gory Marrable went on with his plan : 
« Ten years ago, when she was not much 
more than a little girl, and when it was 
first arranged that she should come here, 
my father proposed that I should marry 
her.” 

“ And why didn’t you ?’’ x 

The elder cousin smiled and shook his 
head, and coughed aloud as he smiled : 
“Why not, indeed? Well, I suppose 
you can see why not. I was an old man 
almost before she was a young woman. 
She is -just twenty-four now, and I shall 
be dead, probably, in two years’ time.” 

“ Nonsense !” 

“Twice since that time I have been 
within an inch of dying. At any rate, 
even my father does not look to that any 
longer.” 

“ Is he fond of Miss Brownlow ?” 

“ There is no one in the world whom 
he loves so well. Of course an old man 
loves a young woman best. It is natural 
that he should do so. He never had a 
daughter, but Edith is the same to him 
as his own child. Nothing would please 
him so much' as that she should be the 
mistress of Dunripple.” 

“ I’m afraid that it cannot be so,” said 
Walter. 

“ But why not ? There need be no 
India for you then. If you would do 
that, you would be to my father exactly 
as though you were his son. Your 
father might, of course, outlive my father, 
and no doubt will outlive me, and then 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


i8i 


for his life he will have the place, but 
some arrangement could be made so that 
you should continue here.” 

“ I’m afraid it cannot be so,” said 
Walter. Many thoughts were passing 
through his mind. Why had he not 
known that these good things were so 
near to him before he had allowed Mary 
Lowther to go off from him 1 And had 
it chanced that he had visited Dunripple 
before he had gone to Loring, how might 
it have been between him and this other 
girl ? Edith Brownlow was not beauti- 
ful, not grand in her beauty, as was Mary 
Lowther ; but she was pretty, soft, lady- 
like, with a sweet dash of quiet, pleasant 
humor — a girl who certainly need not be 
left begging about the world for a hus- 
band. And this life at Dunripple was 
pleasant enough. Though the two elder 
Marrables were old and infirm, Walter 
was allowed to do just as he pleased in 
the house. He was encouraged to hunt. 
There was shooting for him if he wished 
it. Even the servants about the place — 
the gamekeeper, the groom and the old 
butler — seemed to have recognized him 
as the heir. There would have been so 
comfortable an escape from the dilemma 
into which his father had brought him 
had he not made his visit to Loring. 

“ Why not ?” demanded Gregory Mar- 
rable ?” 

“A man cannot become attached to a 
girl by order, and what right have^ I to 
suppose that she v/ould accept me ?” 

“ Of course she would accept you. 
Why not ? Everybody around her would 
be in your favor. And as to not falling 
in love with her, I declare I do not know 
a sweeter human being in the world than 
Edith Brownlow.” 

Before the hunting season was over. 
Captain Marrable had abandoned his in- 
tention of going to India, and had made 
arrangements for serving for a while with 
his regiment in England. This he did 
after a discussion of some length with 
his uncle. Sir Gregory. During ‘ that 
discussion nothing w'as said about Edith 
Brownlow, and of course not a word was 
said about Mary Lowther. Captain Mar- 
rable did not even know whether his 
uncle or his cousin was aware that that 


engagement had ever existed. Between 
him and his uncle there had never been 
an allusion to his marriage, but the old 
man had spoken of his nearness to the 
property, and had expressed his regret 
that the last heir, the only heir likely to 
perpetuate the name and title, should 
take himself to India in the pride of his 
life. He made no offer as to money, 
but he told his nephew that there was a 
home for him if he would give up his 
profession, or a retreat whenever his 
professional duties might allow him to 
visit it. Horses should be kept for him, 
and he should be treated in every way 
as a son of the family. 

“Take my father at his word,” said' 
Gregory Marrable. “ He will never let 
you be short of money.” 

After much consideration, Walter Mar- 
rable did take Sir Gregory at his word, 
and abandoned for ever all idea of a 
further career in India. 

As soon as he had done this he wrote 
to Mary Cowther to inform her of his 
decision. “It does seem hard,” he said 
in his letter, “that an arrangement which 
is in so many respects desirable should 
not have been compatible with one which 
is so much more desirable.” But he 
made no renewed offer. Indeed he felt 
that he could not do so at the present 
moment, in honesty either to his cousin 
or to his uncle, as he had accepted their 
hospitality and acceded to the arrange- 
ments which they had proposed without 
any word on his part of such intention. 

A home had been offered to him at Dun- 
ripple — to him in his present condition 
— but certainly not a home to any wife 
whom he might bring there, nor a home 
to the family which might come after- 
ward. He thought that he was doing 
the best that he could with himself by 
remaining ‘in England, and the best also 
toward a possible future renewal of his , 
engagement with Mary Lowther. But 
of that he said nothing in his letter to 
her. He merely told her the fact as it 
regarded himself, and told that somewhat 
coldly. Of Edith Brownlow, and of the 
proposition in regard to her, of course 
he said nothing. 

It was the intention both of Sir Gre- 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


182 

gory and his son that the new inmate of 
the house should marry Edith. The old 
man, who up to a late date had with 
weak persistency urged the match upon 
his son, had taken up the idea frori^ the 
very first arrival of his nephew at Dun- 
ripple. Such an arrangement would solve 
all the family difficulties, and would en- 
able him to provide for Edith as though 
she were indeed his daughter. He loved 
Edith dearly, but he could not bear that 
she should leave Dunripple ; and it had 
grieved him sorely when he reflected that 
in coming years Dunripple must belong 
to relatives of whom he knew nothing 
that was good, and that Edith Brownlow 
must be banished from the house. If 
his son would have married Edith, all 
might have been well, but even Sir Gre- 
gory was at last aware that no such 
marriage as that could take place. Then 
had come the quarrel between the colonel 
and the captain, and the latter had been 
taken into favor. Colonel Marrable would 
not have been allowed to put his foot 
inside Dunripple House, so great was 
the horror which he had created. And 
the son had been feared too as long as 
the father and son were one. But now 
the father, who had treated the whole 
family vilely, had treated his own son 
most vilely, and therefore the son had 
been received with open arms. If only 
he could be trusted with Edith, and if 
Edith and he might be made to trust 
each other, all might be well. Of the 
engagement between Walter and Mary 
Lowther no word had ever reached Dun- 
ripple. Twice or thrice in the year a 
letter would pass between Parson John 
and his nephew, Gregory Marrable, but 
such letters were very short, and the 
parson was the last man in the world to 
spread the tittle-tattle of a love-story. 
He had always known that that affair 
would lead to nothing, and that the less 
said about it the belter. 

Walter Marrable was to join his regi- 
ment at Windsor before the end of April. 
When he wrote to Mary Lowther to tell 
her of his plans, he had only a fortnight 
longer for remaining in idleness at Dun- 
ripple. The hunting was over, and his 
life was simply idle. He perceived, or 


thought that he perceived, that all the 
inmates of the house, and especially his 
uncle, expected that he would soon re- 
turn to them, and that they spoke of his 
work of soldiering as of a thing that was 
temporary. Mrs. Brownlow, who was a 
quiet woman, very reticent, and by no 
means inclined to interfere with things 
not belonging to her, had suggested that 
he would soon be with them again, and 
the housekeeper had given him to under- 
stand that his room was not to be touch- 
ed. And then, too, he thought that he 
saw that Edith Brownlow was specially 
left in his way. If that were so, it was 
necessary that the eyes of some one of 
the Dunripple party should be opened to 
the truth. 

He was walking home with Miss 
Brownlow across the park from church 
one Sunday morning. Sir Gregory never 
went to church : his age was supposed 
to be too great or his infirmities too 
many. Mrs. Brownlow was in the pony 
carriage driving her nephew, and Walter 
Marrable was alone with Edith. There 
had been some talk of cousinship, of the 
various relationships of the family and 
the like, and of the way in which the 
Marrables were connected. They two, 
Walter and Edith, were not cousins. 
She was related to the family only by 
her aunt’s marriage, and yet, as she said, 
she had always heard more of the Mar- 
rables than of the Brownlows. 

“You never saw Mary Lowther?” 
Walter asked. 

“ Never.” 

“ But you have heard of her ?” 

“ I just know her name, hardly more. 
The last time your uncle was here — 
Parson John— we were talking of her. 
He made her out to be wonderfully 
beautiful.” 

“ That was as long ago as last sum- 
mer,” said the captain, reflecting that his 
uncle’s account had been given before he 
and Mary Lowther had seen each other. 

“ Oh yes — ever so long ago.” 

“ She is wonderfully beautiful.” 

“You know her, then. Captain Mar- 
rable ?” 

“ I know her very well. In the first 
place, she is my cousin.” 














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THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


183 


« But ever so distant ?” 

“ We are not first cousins. Her 
mother was a daughter of General Mar- 
rable, who was a brother of Sir Gre- 
gory’s father. 

“It is so hard to understand, is it 
not ? She is wonderfully beautiful, is 
she ?” 

“ Indeed, she is.” 

“And she is your cousin — in the 
first place. What is she in the second 
place ?” 

He was not quite sure whether he 
wished to tell the story or not. The 
engagement was broken, and it might 
be a question whether, as regarded Mary, 
he had a right to tell it ; anci-then, if he 
did tell it, would not his reason for doing 
so be apparent ? Was it not palpable 
that he was expected to marry this girl, 
and that she would understand that he 
was explaining to her that he did not 
intend to carry out the general expecta- 
tion of the family ? And then, was he 
sure that it might not be possible for 
him at some future time to do as he was 
desired ? 

“ I meant to say that, as I was stay- 
ing at Loring, of course I met her fre- 
quently. She is living with a certain 
old Miss Marrable, whom you will meet 
some day.” 

“ I have heard of her, but I don’t sup- 
pose I ever shall meet her. I never go 
anywhere. I don’t suppose there are 
such stay-at-home people in the world 
as we are.” 

“ Why don’t you get Sir Gregory to 
ask them here ?” 

“ Both he and my cousin are so afraid 
of having strange women in the house, 
you know, we never have anybody here : 
your coming has been quite an event. 
Old Mrs. Potter seems to think that an 
era of dissipation is to be conimenced 
because she has been called upon to 
open so many pots of jam to make pies 
for you.” 

“ I’m afraid I have been vo-v trouble- 
some.” j 

« Awfully troublesome ! /( a c.'n’t 1 

think of all that had to be saic' aiio j 
about the stables ! Do yc>- '’a - • . ;Ur 1 
oats bruised.? Even I v.to ■ 1 ’-ed | 
14 


about that. Most of the people in the 
parish are quite disappointed because 
you don’t go about in your full armor.” . 

“ I’m afraid it’s too late now.” 

“ I own I was a little disappointed 
myself when you came down to dinner 
without a sword. You can have no idea 
in what a state of rural simplicity we live 
here. Would you believe it ? — for ten 
years I have never seen the sea, and 
have never been into any town bigger 
than Worcester, unless Hereford be 
bigger. We did go once to the festival 
at Hereford. We have not managed 
Gloucester yet.” ' 

“ You’ve never seen London ?” 

“ Not since I was twelve years old. 
Papa died when I was fourteen, and I 
came here almost immediately afterward. 
Fancy ten years at Dunripple ! There 
is not a tree or a stone I don’t know, 
and of course not a face in the parish.” 

She was very nice, but it was out of 
the question that she should ever be- 
come his wife. He had thought that he 
might explain this to herself by letting 
her know that he had within the last few 
months become engaged to, and had 
broken his engagement with, his cousin, 
Mary Lowther. But he found that he 
could not do it. In the first place, she 
would understand more than he meant 
her to understand if he made the attempt. 
She would know that he was putting her 
on her guard, and would take it as an 
insult. And then he could not bring 
himself to talk about Mary Lowther and 
to tell their joint secrets. He was dis- 
contented with himself and with Dun- 
ripple, and he repented that he had 
yielded in respect to his Indian service. 
Everything had gone wrong with him. 
Had he refused to accede to Mary’s 
proposition for a separation, and had he 
come to Dunripple as an engaged man, 
he might, he thought, have reconciled his 
uncle — or at least his cousin Gregory — 
to his marriage with Mary. But he did 
not see his way back to that position 
now, having been entertained at his 
I uncle’s house as his uncle’s heir for so 
j long a time without having mentioned it. 

I At last he went off to Windsor, sad 
I at heart, having received from Mary an 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


184 

answer to his letter, which he felt to be 
very cold, very discreet and very unsat- 
isfactory. She had merely expressed a 
fervent wish that, whether he went to 
India or whether he remained in Eng- 
land, he might be prosperous and happy. 
The writer evidently intended that the 
correspondence should not be continued. 


CHAPTER XLV. 

WHAT SHALL I DO WITH MYSELF? 

Parson John Marrable, though he 
said nothing in his letters to Dunripple 
about the doings of his nephew at Lor- 
ing, was by no means equally reticent in 
his speech at Loring as to the doings at 
Dunripple. How he came by his news 
he did not say, but he had ever so much 
to tell. And Miss Marrable, who knew 
him well, was aware that his news was 
not simple gossip, but was told with an 
object. In his way. Parson John was a 
crafty man who was always doing a turn 
of business. To his mind it was clearly 
inexpedient, and almost impracticable, 
that his nephew and Mary Lowther 
should ever become man and wife. He 
knew that they were separated, but he 
knew, also, that they had agreed to 
separate on terms which would easily 
admit of being reconsidered. He, too, 
had heard of Edith Brownlow, and had 
heard that if a marriage could be ar- 
ranged between Walter and Edith the 
family troubles would be in a fair way 
of settlement. No good could come to 
anybody from that other marriage. As 
for Mary Lowther, it was manifestly her 
duty to become Mrs. Gilmore. He 
therefore took some trouble to let the 
ladies at Uphill know that Captain Mar- 
■'rable had been received very graciously 
at Dunripple ; that he was making him- 
self very happy there, hunting, shooting 
and forgetting his old troubles ; that it 
was understood that he was to be rec- 
ognized as the heir ; and that there was 
a young lady in the case, the favorite of 
Sir Gregory. 

He understood the world too well to 
say a word to Mary Lowther herself 
about her rival. Mary would have per- 


ceived his drift. But he expressed his 
ideas about Edith confidentially to Miss 
Marrable, fully alive to the fact that 
Miss Marrable would know how to deal 
with her niece. “ It is by far the best 
thing that could have happened to him,’’ 
said the parson. “ As for going out to 
India again, for a man with his prospects 
it was very bad.” 

“ But his cousin isn’t much older than 
he is,” suggested Miss Marrable. 

« Yes he is — a great deal older. And 
Gregory’s health is so bad that his life 
is not worth a year’s purchase. Poor 
fellow ! they tell me he only cares to live 
till he has got his book out. The truth is, 
that if Walter could make a match of it 
with Edith Brownlow, they might ar- 
range something’ about the property 
which would enable him to live there 
just as though the place were his own. 
The colonel would be the only stumbling- 
block, and after what he has done he 
could hardly refuse to agree to anything.” 

« They’d have to pay him,” said Miss 
Marrable. 

“Then he must be paid, that’s all. 
My brother Gregory is wrapped up in 
that girl, and he would do anything for 
her welfare. I’m told that she and 
Walter have taken very kindly to each 
other already.” 

It would be better for Mary Lowther 
that Walter Marrable should marry Edith 
Brownlow. Sucli, at least, was Miss 
Marrable’s belief. She could see that 
Mary, though she bore herself bravely, 
still did so as one who had received a 
wound for which there was no remedy — 
as a man who has lost a leg, and who 
nevertheless intends to enjoy life, though 
he knows that he never can walk again. 
But in this case the real bar to walking 
was the hope in Mary’s breast— a hope, 
that was still present, though it was not 
nourished — that the leg was not irreme- 
diably lost. If Captain Marrable would 
finish all that by marrying Edith, then — 
so thought Miss Marrable — in process 
of time the cure would be made good 
and there might be another leg. She 
did not believe much in the captain’s 
constancy, and was quite ready to listen 
to the story about another love. And 


THE VICAR OF 

so from day to day words were dropped 
into Mary’s ear which had their effect. 

« I must say that I am glad that he is 
not to go to India,” said Miss Marrable 
to her niece. 

“ So, indeed, am I,” answered Mary. 

“In the first place, it is such an ex- 
cellent thing that he should be on good 
terms at Dunripple. He must inherit 
the property some day, and the title too.” 

To this Mary made no reply. It 
seemed to her to have been hard that 
the real state of things should not have 
been explained to her before she gave 
up her lover. She had then regarded 
any hope of relief from Dunripple as 
being beyond measure distant. There 
had been a possibility, and that was all — 
a chance to which no prudent man and 
woman would have looked in making 
their preparations for the life before 
them. That had been her idea as to 
the Dunripple prospects ; and now it 
seemed that on a sudden Walter was to 
be regarded as almost the immediate 
heir. She did not blame him, but it did 
appear to be hard upon her. 

“ I don’t see the slightest reason why 
he shouldn’t live at Dunripple,” con- 
tinued Miss Marrable. 

“ Only that he would be dependent. I 
suppose he does not mean to sell out of 
the army altogether.” 

“At any rate, he may be backward 
and forward. You see, there is no chance 
of Sir Gregory’s own son marrying.” 

“ So they say.” 

“And hi§ position would be really 
that of a younger brother in similar cir- 
cumstances.” 

Mary paused a moment before she re- 
plied, and then she spoke out : 

“ Dear Aunt Sarah, what does all this 
mean } I know you are speaking at me, 
and yet I don’t quite understand it. 
Everything between me and Captain 
Marrable is over. I have no possible 
means of influencing his life. If I were 
told to-morrow that he had given up the 
army and taken to living altogether at 
Dunripple, I should have no means of 
judging whether he had done well or 
ill. Indeed, I should ^have no right to 
judge.” 


BULLHAMPTON. 185 

“You must be glad that the family 
should be united.” 

“ I am glad. Now, is that all ?” 

“ I want you to bring yourself to think 
without regret of his probable marriage 
with this young lady.” 

“ You don’t suppose I shall blame him 
if he marries her ?” 

“But I want you to see it in such 
a light that it shall not make you un- 
happy.” 

“ I think, dear aunt, that we had bet- 
ter not talk of it. I can assure you of 
this, that if I could prevent him from 
marrying by holding up my little finger, 
I would not do it.” 

“ It would be ten thousand pities,” 
urged the old lady, “that either his life 
or yours should be a sacrifice to a little 
episode, which, after all, only took a 
week or two in the acting.” 

“ I can only answer for myself,” said 
Mary. “ I am sure I don’t mean to be 
a sacrifice.” 

There were many such conversations, 
and by degrees they did have an effect 
upon Mary Lowther. She learned to 
believe that it was probable that Captain 
Marrable should marry Miss Brownlow, 
and of course asked herself questions as 
to the effect such a marriage would have 
upon herself, which she answered more 
fully than she did those which were put 
to her by her aunt. Then there came 
to Parson John some papers which re- 
quired his signature in reference to the 
disposal of a small sum of money, he 
having been one of the trustees to his 
brother’s marriage settlement. , This was 
needed in regard to some provision which 
the baronet was making for his niece, and 
which, if read aright, would rather have 
afforded evidence against than in favor 
of the chance of her immediate marriage ; 
but it was taken at Coring to signify that 
the thing was to be done, and that the 
courtship was at any rate in progress. 
Mary did not believe all that she heard, 
but there was left upon her miiid an idea 
that Walter Marrable was preparing him- 
self for the sudden change of his affec- 
tions. Then she determined that, should 
he do so, she would not judge him to 
1 have done wrong. If he could settle 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


1 86 

himself comfortably in this way, why 
should he not do so ? She was told that 
Edith Brownlow was pretty and gentle 
and good, and would undoubtedly receive 
from Sir Gregory’s hands all that Sir 
Gregory could give her. It was expe- 
dient, for the sake of the whole family, 
that such a marriage should be arranged. 
She would not stand in the way of it ; 
and indeed how could she stand in the 
way of it? Had not her engagement 
with Captain Marrable been dissolved at 
her own instance in the most solemn 
manner possible ? Let him marry whom 
he might, she could have no ground of 
complaint on that score. 

She was in this state of mind when ' 
she received Captain Marrable’s letter 
from Dunripple. When she opened it, 
for a moment she thought that it would 
convey to her tidings respecting Miss 
Brownlow. When she had read it, she 
told herself how impossible it was that 
he should have told her of his new mat- 
rimonial intentions, even if he entertained 
them. The letter gave no evidence either 
one way or the other, but it confirmed to 
her the news which had reached her 
through Parson John, that her former 
lover intended to abandon that special 
career his choice of which had made it 
necessary that they two should abandon 
their engagement. When at Loring he 
had determined that he must go to India. 
He had found it to be impossible that he 
should live without going to India. He 
had now been staying a few weeks at 
Dunripple with his uncle and with Edith 
Brownlow, and it turned out that he need 
not go to India at all. Then she sat 
down and wrote to him that guarded, 
civil, but unenthusiastic letter of which 
the reader has already heard. She had 
allowed herself to be wounded and made 
sore by what they had told her of Edith 
Brownlow. 

It was still early in the spring, just in 
the middle of April, when Mary received 
another fetter from her friend at Bull- 
hampton — a letter which made her turn 
all these things in her mind very seri- 
ously. If Walter Marrable were to marry 
Edith Brownlow, what sort of future life 
should she, Mary Lowther, propose to 


herself? She was firmly resolved upon 
one thing — that it behooved her to look 
rather to what was right than to what 
might simply be pleasant. But would it 
be right that she should consider herself 
to be, as it were, widowed by the frustra- 
tion of an unfortunate passion? Life 
would still be left to her — such a life as 
that which her aunt lived — such a life, 
with this exception, that whereas her 
aunt was a single lady with moderate 
means, she would be a single lady with 
very small means indeed. But that 
question of means did not go far with 
her: there was something so much more 
important that she could put that out of 
sight. She had told herself very plainly 
that it was a good thing for a woman to 
be married — that she would live and die 
unsuccessfully if ,she lived and died a 
single woman — that she had desired to 
do better with herself than that. Was 
it proper that she should now give up 
all such ambition because she had made 
a mistake? If it were proper, she would 
do so ; and then the question resolved 
itself into this : Could she be right if she 
married a man without loving him ? To 
marry a man without esteeming him, 
without the possibility of loving him 
hereafter, she knew would be wrong. 

Mrs. Fenwick’s letter was as follows : 

“ Vicarage, Tuesday. 

« My dear Mary : 

“ My brother-in-law left us yesterday, 
and has put us all into a twitter. He 
said, just as he was going away, that he 
didn’t believe that Lord Trowbridge had 
any right to give away the ground, be- 
cause it had not been in his possession 
or his family’s for a great many years, 
or something of that sort. We don’t 
clearly understand all about it, nor does 
he ; but he is to find out something 
which he says he can find out, and then 
let us know. But in the middle of all 
this Frank declares that he won’t stir in 
the matter, and that if he could put the 
abominable thing down by holding up 
his finger, he would not do it. And he 
has made me promise not to talk about 
it, and therefore all I can do is to be in 
a twitter. If that spiteful old man has 


THE VICAR OF 

really given away land that doesn’t be- 
long to him, simply to annoy us — and it 
certainly has been done with no other 
object — I think that he ought to be told 
of it. Frank, however, has got to be 
quite serious about it, and you know 
how very serious he can be when he is 
serious. 

“ But I did not sit down to write spe- 
cially about that horrid chapel. I want 
to know what you mean to do in the 
summer. It is always better to make 
these little arrangements beforehand ; 
and when I speak of the summer, I mean 
the early summer. The long and the 
short of it is, will you come to us about 
the end of May ? 

“ Of course I know which way your 
thoughts will go when you get this, and 
of course you will know what I am think- 
ing of when I write it ; but I will prom- 
ise that not a word shall be said to you 
to urge you in any way. I do not sup- 
pose you will think it right that you 
should stay away from friends whom you 
love, and who love you dearly, for fear 
of a man who wants you to marry him. 
You are not afraid of Mr. Gilmore, and 
I don’t suppose that you are going to 
shut yourself up all your life because 
Captain Marrable has not a fortune of 
his own. Come, at any rate. If you 
find it unpleasant, you shall go back just 
when you please, and I will pledge my- 
self that you shall not be harassed by 
persuasions. 

“ Yours, most affectionately, 

“Janet Fenwick. 

“ Frank has read this. He says that 
all I have said about his being serious 
is a tarradiddle, but that nothing can be 
more true than what I have said about 
your friends loving you and wishing to 
have you here again. If you were here, 
we might talk him over yet about the 
chapel.” (To which, in the vicar’s hand- 
writing, was added the word, “Never!”) 

It was two days before she showed 
this letter to her aunt — two days in 
which she had thought much upon the 
subject. She knew well that her aunt 
would counsel her to go to Bullhampton, 
and therefore she would not mention the 


BULLHAMPTON. 187 

letter till she had made up her own 
mind. 

“ What will you do said her aunt. 

“ I will go, if you*do not object.” 

“ I certainly shall not object,” said 
Miss Marrable. 

Then Mary wrote a very short letter 
to her friend, which may as well also be 
communicated to the reader : 

“ Boring, Thursday. 

“ Dear Janet : ^ 

“ I will go to you about the end of 
May ; and yet, though I have made up 
my mind to do so, I almost doubt that I 
am not wise. If one could only ordain 
that things should be as though they 
had never been 1 That, however, is im- 
possible,* and one can only endeavor to 
live so as to come as nearly as possible 
to such a state. I know that I am con- 
fused, but I think you will understand 
what I mean. 

“ I intend to be very full of energy 
about the chapel, and I do hope that 
yqur brother-in-law will be able to prove 
that Lord Trowbridge has been misbe- 
having himself. I never loved Mr. Pud- 
dleham, who always seemed to look upon 
me with wrath because I belonged to 
the vicarage ; and I certainly should 
take delight in seeing him banished from 
the vicarage gate. 

“ Always affectionately yours, 

“ Mary Lowther.” 


CHAPTER XLVI. 

MR. JAY OF WARMINSTER. 

The vicar had undertaken to main- 
tain Carry Brattle at Mrs. Stiggs’ house 
in Trotter’s Buildings fora fortnight, but 
he found at the end of the fortnight that 
his responsibility on the poor girl’s be- 
half was by no means over. The reader 
knows with what success he had made 
his visit to Startup, and how far he was 
from ridding himself of his burden by 
the aid of the charity and affection of 
the poor girl’s relatives there. He had 
shaken the Startup dust, as it were, from 
his gig-wheels as he drove out of George 
Brattle’s farmyard, and had declined even 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


1 88 

the offer of money which had been made. 
Ten or fifteen pounds ! He would make 
up the amount of that offer out of his 
own pocket rather fhan let the brother 
think that he had bought off his duty to 
a sister at so cheap a rate. Then he 
convinced himself that in this way he 
owed Carry Brattle fifteen pounds, and 
comforted himself by reflecting that these 
fifteen pounds would carry the girl on a 
good deal beyond the fortnight, if only 
she would submit herself to the tedium 
of such a life as would be hers if she re- 
mained at Mrs. Stiggs’ house. He named 
a fortnight both to Carry and to Mrs. 
Stiggs, saying that he himself would 
either come or send before the end of 
that time. Then he returned home and 
told the whole story to his wife. All 
this took place before Mr. Quickenham’s 
arrival at the vicarage. 

“My dear Frank,” said his wife to 
him, “ you will get into trouble.” 

“ What sort of trouble ?” 

“ In the first place, the expense of 
maintaining this poor girl — for life, as 
far as we can see — will fall upon you.” 

“ What if it does "i But, as a matter 
of course, she will earn her bread sooner 
or later. How am I to throw her over } 
And what am I to do with her ?” 

“But that is not the worst of it, 
Frank.” 

“ Then what is the worst of it ? Let 
us have it at once.” 

“ People will say that you, a clergy- 
man and a married man, go to see a 
pretty young woman at Salisbury.” 

“You believe that people will say 
that ?” 

“ I think you should guard against it, 
for the sake of the parish.” 

“ What sort of people will say it ?” 

“ Lord Trowbridge and his set.” 

“On my honor, Janet, I think that 
you wrong Lord Trowbridge. He is a 
fool, and to a certain extent a vindictive 
fool — and I grant you that he has taken it 
into his silly old head to hate me unmerci- 
fully — but I believe him to be a gentle- 
man, and do not think that he would 
condescend to spread a damnably ma- 
licious report of which he did not believe 
a word himself.” 


“ But, my dear, he will believe it.” 

“ Why ? How ? On •what evidence ? 
He couldn’t believe it. Let a man be 
ever such a fool, he can’t believe a thing 
without some reason. I dislike Lord 
Trowbridge very much, and you might 
just as well say that because I dislike 
him I shall believe that he is a hard 
landlord. He is not a hard landlord ; 
and were he to stick dissenting chapels 
all about the county, I should be a liar 
and a slanderer were I to say that he 
was.” 

“But then, you see, you are not a 
fool, Frank.” 

This brought the conversation to an 
end. The vicar was willing enough to 
turn upon his heel and say nothing more 
on a matter as to which he was by no 
means sure that he was in the right ; 
and his wife felt a certain amount of re- 
luctance in urging any arguments upon 
such a subject. Whatever Lord Trow- 
bridge might say or think, her Frank 
must not be led to suppose that any un- 
worthy suspicion troubled her own mind. 
Nevertheless, she was sure that he was 
imprudent. 

When the fortnight was near at an end 
and nothing had been done, he went 
again over to Salisbury. It was quite 
true that he had business there, as a 
gentleman almost always does have 
business in the county town where his 
banker lives, whence tradesmen supply 
him and in which he belongs to some 
club. And our vicar, too, was a man 
fond of seeing his bishop, and one who 
loved to move about in the precincts of 
the cathedral, to shake hands with the 
dean, and to have a little subrisive fling 
at Mr. Chamberlaine, or such another 
as Mr. Chamberlaine, if the opportunity 
came in his way. He was by no means 
indisposed to go into Salisbury in the 
ordinary course of things ; and on this 
occasion absolutely did see Mr. Chamber- 
laine, the dean, his saddler and the clerk 
at the fire insurance office — as well as 
Mrs. Stiggs and Carry Brattle. If, there- 
fore, any one had said that on this day 
he had gone into Salisbury simply to see 
Carry Brattle, such person would have 
1 maligned him. He reduced the premium 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


189 


on his fire insurance by five shillings and 
sixpence a year, and he engaged Mr. 
Chaniberlaine to meet Mr. Quickenham, 
and he borrowed from the dean an old 
book about falconry ; so that in fact the 
few minutes which he spent at Mrs. 
Stiggs’ house were barely squeezed in 
among the various affairs of business 
which he had to transact at Salisbury. 

All that he could say to Carry Brattle 
was this — that hitherto he had settled 
nothing. She must stay in Trotter’s 
Buildings for another week or so. He 
had been so busy, in consequence of the 
time of the year, preparing for Easter 
and the like, that he had not been able 
to look about him. He had a plan, but 
would say nothing about it till he had 
seen whether it could be carried out. 
When Carry murmured something about 
the cost of her living, the vicar boldly 
declared that she need not fret herself 
about that, as he had money of hers in 
hand. He would some day explain all 
about that, but not now. Then he in- 
terrogated Mrs. Stiggs as to Carry’s 
life. Mrs. Stiggs expressed her belief 
that Carry wouldn’t stand it much longer. 
The hours had been inexpressibly long, 
and she had declared more than once 
that the best thing she could do was to 
go out and kill herself. Nevertheless, 
Mrs. Stiggs’ report as to her conduct 
was favorable. Of Sam Brattle, the 
vicar, though he inquired, could learn 
nothing. Carry declared that she had 
not heard from him since he left her, all 
bruised and bleeding, after his fight at 
the Three Honest Men. 

The vicar had told Carry Brattle that 
he had a plan, but, in truth, he had no 
plan. He had an idea that he might 
overcome the miller by taking his daugh- 
ter straight into his house and placing 
the two face to face together; but it was 
one in which he himself put so little 
trust that he could form no plan out of 
it. In the first place, would he be justi- 
fied in taking such a step ? Mrs. George 
Brattle had told him that people knew 
what was good for them without being 
dictated to by clergymen ; and the re- 
buke had come home to him. He was 
the last man in the world to adopt a 


system of sacerdotal interference. «I 
could do it so much better if I was not 
a clergyman,” he would say to himself 
And then, if old Brattle chose to turn 
his daughter out of the house on such 
provocation as the daughter had given 
him, what was that to him, Fenwick, 
whether priest or layman ? The old man 
knew what he was about, and had shown 
his determination very vigorously. 

“ I’ll try the ironmonger at War- 
minster,” he said to his wife. 

« I’m afraid it will be of no use,” she 
answered. 

“ I don’t think it will. Ironmongers 
are probably harder than millers or 
farmers, and farmers are very hard. 
That fellow, Jay, would not even consent 
to be bail for Sam Brattle. But some- 
thing must be done.” 

“She should be put into a reforma- 
tory.” 

“It would be too late now. That 
should have been done at once. At any 
rate, I’ll go to Warminster. I want to 
call on old Dr. Dickleburg, and I can do 
that at the same time.” 

He did go to Warminster. He did 
call on the doctor, who was not at home ; 
and he did call also upon Mr. Jay, who 
was at home. 

With Mr. Jay himself his chance was 
naturally much less than it would be 
with George Brattle. The ironmonger 
was connected with the unfortunate 
young woman only by marriage ; and 
what brother-in-law would take such a 
sister-in-law to his bosom ? And of 
Mrs. Jay he thought that he knew that 
she was puritanical, stiff and severe. 
Mr. Jay he found in his shop along with 
an apprentice, but he had no difficulty in 
leading the master ironmonger along with 
him through a vista of pots, grates and 
frying pans into a small recess at the 
back of the establishment, in which re- 
quests for prolonged credit were usually 
made and urgent appeals for speedy pay- 
ment as often put forth. 

“ Know the story of Caroline Brattle ? 
Oh yes ! I know it, sir,” said Mr. Jay. 
“We had to know it.” And as he spoke 
he shook his head and rubbed his hands 
together, and looked down upon the 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


190 

ground. There was, however, a humil- 
ity about the man, a confession on his 
part that in talking to an undoubted 
gentleman he was talking to a superior 
being, which gave to Fenwick an au- 
thority which he had felt himself to want 
in his intercourse with the farmer. 

« I am sure, Mr. Jay, you will agree 
with me in that she should be saved if 
possible.” 

“ As to her soul, sir ?” asked the iron- 
monger. 

“ Of course, as to her soul. But we 
must get at that by saving her in this 
world first.” 

Mr. Jay was a slight man, of middle 
height, with very respectable iron-gray 
hair that stood almost upright upon his- 
head, but with a poor, inexpressive, thin 
face below it. He was given to bowing 
a good deal, rubbing his hands together, 
smiling courteously, and to the making 
of many civil little speeches ; but his 
strength as a leading man in Warminster 
lay in his hair, and in the suit of orderly, 
well-brushed black clothes which he 
wore on all occasions. He was, too, a 
man fairly prosperous, who went always 
to church, paid his way, attended sedu- 
lously to his business, and hung his bells 
and sold his pots in such a manner as 
not actually to drive his old customers 
away by default of work. “Jay is re- 
spectable, and I don’t like to leave him,” 
men would say, when their wives de- 
clared that the backs of his grates fell 
out and that his nails never would stand 
hammering. So he prospered, but per- 
haps he owed his prosperity mainly to 
his hair. He rubbed his hands and 
smiled and bowed his head about as he 
thought what answer he might best 
make. He was quite willing that poor 
Carry’s soul should be saved. That 
would naturally be Mr. Fenwick’s affair. 
But as to saving her body with any co- 
operation from himself or Mrs. Jay — he 
did not see his way at all through such 
a job as that. 

« I’m afraid she is a bad ’un, Mr. 
Fenwick: I’m afraid she is,” said Mr. 
Jay. 

« The thing is, whether we can’t put 
our heads together and make her less 


bad,” said the vicar. “She must live 
somewhere, Mr. Jay.” 

“ I don’t know whether almost the 
best thing for ’em isn’t to die — of course 
after they have repented, Mr. Fenwick. 
You see, sir, it is so very low and so 
shameful, and they do bring such dis- 
grace on their poor families. There 
isn’t anything a young man can do 
that is nearly so bad — is there, Mr. 
Fenwick ?” 

“ I’m not at all sure of that, Mr. Jay.” 

“ Ain’t you, now ?” 

“ I’m not going to defend Carry 
Brattle, but if you will think how very 
small an amount of sin may bring a 
woman to this wretched condition, your 
heart will be softened. Poor Carry ! 
she was so bright and so good and so 
clever !” 

“Clever she was, Mr. Fenwick, and 
bright, too, as you call it. But — ” 

“Of course we know all that. The 
question now is, What can we do to help 
her? She is living now, at this present 
moment, an orderly, sober life, but with- 
out occupation or means or friends. 
Will your wife let her come to her — for 
a month or so, just to try her?” 

“ Come and live here ?” exclaimed the 
ironmonger. 

“ That is what I would suggest. Who 
is to give her the shelter of a roof if a 
sister will not ?” 

“ I don’t think that Mrs. Jay would 
undertake that,” said the ironmonger, 
who had ceased to rub his hands and to 
bow, and whose face had now become 
singularly long and lugubrious. 

“ May I ask her ?” 

“ It wouldn’t do any good, Mr. Fen- 
wick — it wouldn’t indeed.” 

“ It ought to do good. May I try?” 

“If you ask me, Mr. Fenwick, I 
should say no ; indeed I should. Mrs. 
Jay isn’t any way strong, and the bare 
mention of that disreputable connection 
produces a sickness internally : it does 
indeed, Mr. Fenwick.” 

“You will do nothing, then, to save 
from perdition the sister of your own 
wife, and will let your wife do nothing?” 

“Now, Mr. Fenwick, don’t be hard 
on me— pray don’t be hard on me. I 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


have been respectable, and have always 
had respectable people about me. If 
my wife’s family are turning wrong, isn’t 
thai bad enough on me without your 
coming to say such things as this to me ? 
Rei-jlly, Mr. Fenwick, if you’d think of it, 
you wouldn’t be so hard.” 

She may die in a ditch, then, for you ?” 
said the vicar, whose feeling against the 
ironmonger was much stronger than it 
bad been against the farmer. He could 
say nothing further, so he turned upon 
his heel and marched down the length 
of ‘ he shop, while the obsequious trades- 
man followed him, again bowing and 
-ubbing his hands, and attending him to 
hr carriage. The vicar didn’t speak 
another word or make any parting salu- 
V ri to Mr. Jay. “Their hearts are 
Uae the nether millstone,” he said to 

■ .u>elf as he drove away, flogging his 
lioise. “Of what use are all the ser- 
mc ns ? Nothing touches them. Do 
unto others as you think they would do 
unr- you. That’s their doctrine.” As 
be went home he made up his mind that 
lie ' luld, as a last effort, carry out that 
sc v. me of taking Carry with him to the 
mb ; he would do so, that is, if he could 
iu'a. 2 Carry to accompany him. In the 
nieaii time, there was nothing left to him 
leave her with Mrs. Stiggs and to 
pay ' en shillings a week for her board 
anu lodging. There was one point on 
which he could not quite make up his 
mind — whether he would or would not 
first acquaint old Mrs. Brattle with his 
intention. 

He had left home early, and when he 
returned his wife had received Mary 
Lowther’s reply to her letter. 

“ She will come asked Franlj;. 

“ She just says that and nothing 
more.” 

“ Then she’ll be Mrs. Gilmore.” 

“ I hope so, with all my heart,” said 
Mrs. Fenwick. 

“ I look upon it as tantamount to 
accepting him. She wouldn’t come un- 
less she had made up her mind to take 
him. You mark my words. They’ll be 
married before the chapel is finished.” 

“You say it as if you thought she 
oughtn’t to come.” 


191 

“ No, I don’t mean that. I was only 
thinking how quickly a woman may re- 
cover from such a hurt.” 

“ Frank, don’t be ill-natured. She will 
be doing what all her friends advise.” 

“ If I were to die, your friends would 
advise you not to grieve, but they would 
think you were very unfeeling if you did 
not.” 

“ Are you going to turn against her ?” 

“ No.” 

“ Then why do you say such things ? 
Is it not better that she should make the 
effort than lie there helpless and motion- 
less, throwing her whole life away ? Will 
it not be much better for Harry Gilmore ?” 

“Very much better for him, because 
he’ll go crazy if she don’t.” 

“ And for her too. We can’t tell what 
is going on inside her breast. I believe 
that she is making a great effort because 
she thinks it is right. You will be kind 
to her when she comes ?” 

“ Certainly I will — for Harry’s sake 
and her own.” 

But in truth the vicar at this moment 
was not in a good humor. He was be- 
coming almost tired of his efforts to set 
other people straight, so great were the 
difficulties that came in his way. As he 
had driven into his own gate he had met 
Mr. Puddleham standing in the road just 
in front of the new chapel. He had niade 
up his mind to accept the chapel, and now 
he said a pleasant word to the minister. 
Mr. Puddleham turned up his eyes and 
his nose, bowed very stiffly, and then 
twisted himself round without answering 
a word. How was it possible for a man 
to live among such people in good-humor 
and Christian charity ? 

In the evening he was sitting with his 
wife in the drawing-room discussing all 
these troubles, when the maid came in 
to say that Constable Toffy was at the 
door. 

Constable Toffy was shown into his 
study, and then the vicar followed him. 
He had not spoken to the constable now 
for some months — not since the time at 
which Sam had been liberated — but he 
had not a moment’s doubt when he was 
thus summoned that something was to 
be said as to the murder of Mr. Trum- 


192 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


bull. The constable put his hand up to 
his head and sat down at the vicar’s 
invitation, before he began to speak. 

« What is it, Toffy said the vicar. 

« We’ve got ’em at last, I think,” said 
Mr. Toffy, in a very low, soft voice. 

“ Got whom ? — the murderers ?” 

“Just so, Mr. Fenwick; all except 
Sam Brattle, whom we want.” 

“ And who are the men ?” 

“Them as we supposed all along — 
Jack Burrows, as they call the Grinder, 
and Lawrence Acorn as was along with 
him. He’s a Birmingham chap, is Acorn. 
He’s knowed very well at Birmingham. 
And then, Mr. Fenwick, there’s Sam. 
That’s all as seems to have been in it. 
We shall want Sam, Mr. Fenwick.” 

“You don’t mean to tell me that he 
w'as one of the murderers ?” 

“We shall ‘Want him, Mr. Fenwick.” 

“ Where did you find the other men 

“ They did get as far as San Francisco 
— did the others. They haven’t had a 
bad game of it — have they, Mr. Fen- 
wick ? They’ve had more than seven 
months of a run. It was the 31st of 
August as Mr. Trumbull was murdered, 
and here’s the 15th of April, Mr. Fen- 
w'ick. There ain’t a many runs as long 
as that. You’ll have Sam Brattle for us 
all right, no doubt, Mr. Fenwick?” The 
vicar told the constable that he would 
see to it and get Sam Brattle to come 
forward as soon as he could. “ I told 
you all through, Mr. Fenwick, as Sam 
was one of them as was in it, but you 
wouldn’t believ^ me.” 

“I don’t believe it now,” said the 
vncar. 


CHAPTER XLVII. 

SAM BRATTLE IS WANTED. 

The next week was one of consider- 
able perturbation, trouble and excitement 
at Bullhampton and in the neighborhood 
of Warminster and Heytesbury. It soon 
became known generally that Jack the 
Grinder and Lawrence Acorn were in 
Salisbury jail, and that Sam Brattle — was 
wanted. The perturbation and excite- 
ment at Bullhampton were of course 


greater than elsewhere. It was neces- 
sary that the old miller should be told — 
necessary also that the ‘people at the 
mill should be asked as to Sam’s pres- 
ent whereabouts. If they did not know' 
it, they might assist the vicar in discov- 
ering it. Fenwick went to the mill, tak- 
ing the squire with him, but they could 
obtain no information. The miller was 
very silent, and betrayed hardly any 
emotion when he was told that the police 
again wanted his son. 

“ They can come and search,” he said 
— “ they can come and search.” And 
then he w^alked slowly away into the 
mill. There was a scene, of course, 
with Mrs. Brattle and Fanny, and the 
two women were in a sad way. 

“ Poor boy ! wretched boy !” said the 
unfortunate mother, who sat sobbing 
witlj her apron over her face. 

“ We know nothing of him, Mr. Gil- 
more, or we would tell at once,” said 
Fanny. 

“ I’m sure you would,” said the vicar. 
“ And you may remember this, Mrs. 
Brattle : I do not for one moment be- 
lieve that Sam had any more to do with 
the murder than you or 1 . You may 
tell his father that I say so, if you 
please.” 

For saying this the squire rebuked 
him as soon as they had left the mill. 
“ I think you go too far in giving such 
assurance as that,” he said. 

“ Surely you would have me say what 
I think ?” 

“ Not on such a matter as this, in 
which any false encouragement may pro- 
duce so much increased suffering. You, 
yourself, are so prone to take your own 
views ;n opposition to those of others 
that you should be specially on your 
guard when you may do so much harm.” 

“ I feel quite sure that he had nothing 
to do with it.” 

“You see that you have the police 
against you after a most minute and pro- 
longed investigation.” 

“ The police are asses,” insisted the 
vicar. 

“Just so. That is, you prefer your 
own opinion to theirs in regard to a mur- 
der. I should prefer yours to theirs on a 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


*193 


. .‘stion of scriptural evidence, but not 
m such an affair as this. I don’t want 
V talk you over, but I wish to make 
you careful with other people who are 
oO closely concerned. In dealing with 
others you have no right to throw over 
the ordinary rules of evidence.” 

The vicar accepted the rebuke and 
promised to be more careful, repeating, 
however, his own opinion about Sam, to 
which he declared his intention of ad- 
hering in regard to his own conduct, let 
the police and magistrates say what they 
might. He almost went so far as to 
declare that he should do so even in op- 
position to the verdict of a jury, but 
Gilmore understood that this was simply 
the natural obstinacy of the man show- 
ing itself in its natural form. 

At this moment, which was certainly 
one of gloom to the parish at large, and 
of great sorrow at the vicarage, the 
squire moved about with a new life, 
which was evident to all who saw him. 
He went about his farm, and talked 
about his trees, and looked at his horses, 
and had come to life again. No doubt 
many guesses as to the cause of this 
were made throughout his establishment, 
and some of them, probably, very near the 
truth. But for the Fenwicks there was 
no need of guessing. Gilmore had been 
told that Mary Lowther was coming to 
Bullhampton in the early summer, and 
had at once thrown off the cloak of his 
sadness. . He had asked no further ques- 
tions : Mrs. Fenwick had found herself 
unable to express a caution, but the ex- 
tent of her friend’s elation almost fright- 
ened her. 

“ I don’t look at it,” she said to her 
husband, “ quite as he does.” 

“ She’ll have him now,” he answered, 
and then Mrs. Fenwick said nothing 
further. 

To Fenwick himself this change was 
one of infinite comfort. The squire was 
his old friend and almost his only near 
neighbor. In all his troubles, whether in- 
side or outside of the parish, he naturally 
went to Gilmore ; and, although he was 
a man not yery prone to walk by the 
advice of friends, still it had been a 
great thing to him to have a friend who 


would give an opinion ; and perhaps the 
more so as the friend was one who did 
not insist on having his opinion taken. 
During the past winter Gilmore had been 
of no use whatever to his friend. His 
opinions on all matters had gone so 
vitally astray that they had not been 
worth having. And he had become so 
morose that the vicar had found it to be 
almost absolutely necessary to leave him 
alone as far as ordinary life was con- 
cerned.* But now the squire was him- 
self again, and on this exciting topic of 
Trumbull’s murder, the prisoners in 
Salisbury jail and the necessity for 
Sam’s reappearance, could talk sensibly 
and usefully. 

It was certainly very expedient that 
Sam should be made to reappear as soon 
as possible. The idea was general in 
the parish that the vicar knew all about 
him. George Brattle, who had become 
bail for his brother’s reappearance, had 
given his name on the clear understand- 
ing that the vicar would be responsible 
Some half-sustained tidings of Carry’s 
presence in Salisbury and of the vicar’s 
various visits to the city were current 
in Bullhampton, and with these was 
mingled an idea that Carry and Sam 
were in league together. That Fenwick 
was chivalrous, perhaps quixotic, in his 
friendships for those whom he regarded, 
had long been felt, and this feeling was 
now stronger than ever. He certainly 
could bring up Sam Brattle if he pleased : 
or if he pleased — as might, some said, not 
improbably be the case — he could keep 
him away. There would be four hun- 
dred pounds to pay for the bail-bond, 
but the vicar was known to be rich as 
well as quixotic, and — so said the Pud- 
dlehamites — would care very little about 
that, if he might thus secure for himself 
his own way. 

He was constrained to go over again 
to Salisbury in order that he might, if 
possible, learn from Carry how to find 
some trace of her brother, and of this 
visit the Puddlehamites also informed 
themselves. There were men and wo- 
men in Bullhampton who knew exactly 
how often the vicar had visited the 
young woman at Salisbury, how long he 


194 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


had been with her on each occasion, and 
how mucn he paid Mrs. Stiggs for the 
accommodation. Gentlemen who are 
quixotic in their kindness to young wo- 
men are liable to have their goings and 
comings chronicled with much exacti- 
tude, if not always with accuracy. 

His interview with Carry on this occa- 
sion was very sad. He could not save 
himself from telling her in part the cause 
of his inquiries. « They haven’t taken 
the two men, have they.?” she ‘asked, 
with an eagerness that seemed to imply 
that she possessed knowledge on the 
matter which could hardly not be guilty. 

“ What two men ?” he asked, looking 
full into her face. Then she was silent, 
and he was unwilling to catch her in a 
trap, to cross-examine her as a lawyer 
would do, or to press out of her any 
communication which she would not 
make willingly and of her own free 
action. “I am told,” he said, “that two 
men have been taken for the murder.” 

“ Where did they find ’em, sir ?” 

“ They had escaped to America, and 
the police have brought them back. Did 
you know them. Carry?” She was again 
silent. The men had not been named, 
and it was not for her to betray them. 
Hitherto, in their interviews, she had 
hardly ever looked him in the face, but 
now she turned her blue eyes full upon 
him. “You told me before, at the old 
woman’s cottage,” he said, “that you 
knew them both — had known one too 
well.” 

“If you please, sir, I won’t say noth- 
ing about ’em.” 

“ I will not ask you. Carry. But you 
would tell me about your brother, if you 
knew ?” 

“ Indeed I would, sir — anything. He 
hadn’t no more to do with Farmer Trum- 
bull’s murder nor you had. They can’t 
touch a hair of his head along of that.” 

“ Such is my belief, but who can prove 
it ?” Again she was silent. “ Can you 
prove it ? If speaking could save your 
brother, surely you would speak out. 
Would you hesitate. Carry, in doing 
anything for your brother’s sake ? 
Whatever rnay be his faults, he has not 
been hard to you like the others.” 


“ Oh, sir, I wish I was dead !” 

“You must not wish that. Carry. 
And if you know aught of this you will 
be bound to speak. If you could bring 
yourself to tell me what you know, I 
think it might be good for both of you.” 

“ It was they who had the money. 
Sam never seed a shilling of it.” 

“ Who are ‘they’ ?” 

“Jack Burrows and Larry Acorn. 
And it wasn’t Larry Acorn, neither, sir. 
I know very well who did it. It was 
Jack Burrows who did it.” 

“ That is he they call the Grinder ?” 

“ But Larry was with him then,” said 
the girl, sobbing. 

“ You are sure of that ?” 

“I ain’t sure of nothing, Mr. Fen- 
wick, only that Sam wasn’t there at all. 
Of that I am quite, quite, quite sure. 
But when you asks me, what am I to 
say ?” 

Then he left her without speaking to 
her on this occasion a word about her- 
self. He had nothing to say that would 
give her any comfort. He had almost 
made up his mind that he would take her 
over with him to the mill, and try what 
might be done by the meeting between 
the father, mother and daughter ; but all 
this new matter about the police and the 
arrest and Sam’s absence made it almost 
impossible for him to take such a step 
at present. As he went he again inter- 
rogated Mrs. Stiggs, and was warned by 
her that words fell daily from her lodger 
which made her think that th^ young 
woman would not remain much longer 
with her. In the mean time, there was 
nothing of which she could complain. 
Carry insisted on her liberty to go out 
and about the city alone, but the woman 
was of opinion that she did this simply 
with the object of asserting her inde- 
pendence. After that the necessary pay- 
ment was made, and the vicar returned 
to the railway station. Of Sam he had 
learned nothing, and now he did not 
know where to go for tidings. He still 
believed that the young man would come 
of his own accord if the demand for his 
appearance were made so public as to 
reach his ear. 

On that same day there was a meet- 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


195 


ing of the magistrates at Heytesbury, 
and the two men who had been so cruelly 
fetched back from San Francisco were 
brought before it. Mr. Gilmore was on 
the bench, along with Sir Thomas Char- 
leys, who was the chairman, and three 
other gentlemen. Cord Trowbridge was 
in the court-house and sat upon the 
bench, but gave it out that he was not 
sitting there as a magistrate. Samuel 
Brattle was called upon to answer to his 
bail, and Jones, the attorney appearing 
for him, explained that he had gone from 
home to seek work elsewhere, alluded 
to the length of time that had elapsed, 
and to the injustice of presuming that a 
man against whom no evidence had been 
adduced should be bound to remain al- 
ways in one parish ; and expressed him- 
self without any doubt that Mr. Fenwick 
and Mr. George Brattle, who were his 
bailsmen, would cause him to be found 
and brought forward. As neither the 
clergyman nor the farmer was in court, 
nothing further could be done at once ; 
and the magistrates were quite ready to 
admit that time must be allowed. Nor 
was the case at all ready against the 
two men who were in custody. Indeed, 
against them the evidence was so little 
substantial that a lawyer from Devizes, 
who attended on their behalf, expressed 
his amazement that the American au- 
thorities should have given them up, and 
suggested that it must have been done 
with some view to a settlement of the 
Alabama claims. Evidence, however, 
was brought up to show that the two 
men had been convicted before — the one 
for burglary, and the other for horse- 
stealing ; that the former, John Burrows, 
known as the Grinder, was a man from 
Devizes with whom the police about that 
town, and at Chippenham, Bath and 
Wells, were welF acquainted ; that the 
other. Acorn, was a young man who had 
been respectable as a partner in a livery 
stable at Birmingham, but who had taken 
to betting, and had for a year past been 
living by evil courses, having previously 
undergone two years of imprisonment 
with hard labor. It was proved that 
they had been seen in the neighborhood 
both before and after the murder ; that 


boots found in the cottage at Pycroft 
Common fitted certain footmarks in the 
mud of the farmer’s yard ; that Burrows 
had been supplied with a certain poison 
at a county chemist’s at Lavington, and 
that the dog Bone’m had been poisoned 
with the like. Many other matters were 
proved, all of which were declared by 
the lawyer from Devizes to amount to 
nothing, and by the police authorities, 
who were prosecutors, to be very much. 
The magistrates of course ordered a re- 
mand, and ordered also that on the day 
named Sam Brattle should appear. It 
was understood that that day week was 
only named pro formd^ the constables 
having explained that at least a fortnight 
would be required for the collection of 
further evidence. This took place on 
Tuesday the 25th of April, and it was 
understood that time up to the 8th of 
May would be given to the police to 
complete their case. 

So far all went on quietly at Heytes- 
bury, but before the magistrates left the 
little town there was a row. Sir Thomas 
Charleys, in speaking to his brother 
magistrate, Mr. Gilmore, about the whole 
aifair and about the Brattles in particu- 
lar, had alluded to “Mr. Fenwick’s un- 
fortunate connection with Carry Brattle” 
at Salisbury. Gilmore fired up at once, 
and demanded to know the meaning of 
this. Sir Thomas, who was not the 
wisest man in the world, but who had 
ideas of justice, and as to whom, in giv- 
ing him his due, it must be owned that 
he was afraid of no one, after some hes- 
itation acknowledged that what he had 
heard respecting Mr. Fenwick had fallen 
from Lord Trowbridge. He had heard 
from Lord Trowbridge that the vicar of 
Bullhampton was . . . Gilmore on the oc- 
casion became full of energy, and pressed 
the baronet very hard. Sir Thomas 
hoped that Mr. Gilmore was not going 
to make mischief. Mr. Gilmore declared 
that he would not submit to the injury 
done to his friend, and that he would 
question Lord Trowbridge on the sub- 
ject. He did question Lord Trowbridge, 
whom he found waiting for his carriage 
in the parlor of the Bull Inn, Sir Thomas 
having accompanied him in the search. 


196 


THE 


BULLHAMPTON. 


i . Oi- 

The marquis was quite out pcKi..': 
had heard, he said, from wl: ■ did • ■ 

doubt to be good author! , . ' ' 
Fenwick was in the habit of visiting 
alone a young woman who had lived in 
his parish, but whom he now maintained 
in lodgings in a low alley in the suburbs 
of Salisbury. He had said so much as 
that. In so saying had he spoken truth 
or falsehood ? If he had said anything 
untrue, he would be the first to acknow- 
ledge his own error. 

Then there had come to be very hot 
words. “ My lord,” said Mr. Gilmore, 
“your insinuation is untrue. Whatever 
your words may have been, in the im- 
pression which they have made they are 
slanderous.” 

“ Who are you, sir,” said the marquis, 
looking at him from head to foot, “ to 
talk to me of the impression of my 
words ?” 

But Mr. Gilmore’s blood was up : 
“You intended to convey to Sir Thomas 
Charleys, my lord, that Mr. Fenwick’s 
visits were of a disgraceful nature. If 
your words did not convey that, they 
conveyed nothing.” 

“ Who are you, sir, that you should 
interpret my words ? I did no more 
than my duty in conveying to Sir Thomas 
Charleys my conviction, my well-ground- 
ed conviction, as to the gentleman’s con- 
duct. What I said to him I will say aloud 
to the whole county. It is notorious that 
the vicar of Bullhampton is in the habit 
of visiting a profligate young woman in 
a low part of the city. That, I say, is 
disgraceful to him, to his cloth and to 
the parish, and I shall give my opinion 
to the bishop to that effect. Who are 
you, sir, that you should question my 
words ?” And again the marquis eyed 
the squire from head to foot, leaving the 
room with a majestic strut as Gilmore 
went on to assert that the allegation 
made, with the sense implied by it, con- 


tained a wicked and a malicious slander. 
Then there were some words, much 
quieter than those preceding them, be- 
tween Mr. Gilmore and Sir Thomas, in 
which the squire pledged himself to — he 
hardly knew what^ and Sir Thomas 
promised to hold his tongue for the 
present. But, as a matter of course, 
the quarrel flew all over the little town. 
It was out of the question that such a 
man as the Marquis of Trowbridge 
should keep his wrath confined. Before 
he had left the inn-yard he had express- 
ed his opinion very plainly to half a 
dozen persons, both as to the immorality 
of the vicar and the impudence of the 
squire ; and as he was taken home his 
hand was itching for pen and paper in 
order that he might write to the bishop. 
Sir Thomas shrugged his shoulders, and 
did not tell the story to more than three 
or four confidential friends, to all of 
whom he remarked that on the matter 
of the visits made to the girl there never 
was smoke without fire. Gilmore’s voice, 
too, had been loud, and all the servants 
about the inn had heard him. He knew 
that the quarrel was already public, and 
felt that he had no alternative but to tell 
his friend what had passed. 

On that same evening he saw the 
vicar. Fenwick had returned from Salis- 
bury tired, dispirited and ill at ease, and 
was just going in to dress for dinner 
when Gilmore met him at his own stable 
door and told him what had occurred. 

“ Then, after all, my wife was right 
and I was wrong,” said Fenwick. 

“ Right about what Gilmore asked. 

“ She said that Lord Trowbridge 
woul^ spread these very lies. I confess 
that I made the mistake of believing him 
to be a gentleman. Of course 1 may 
use your information ?” 

“ Use it just as you please,” said Gil- 
more. Then they parted, and Gilmore, 
who was on horseback, rode home. 


\ - 





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PART VII. 


CHAPTER XLVIII. 

MARY LOWTHER RETURNS TO BULLHAMPTON. 

A MONTH went by after the scenes 
described in the last chapter, and 
summer had come at Bullhampton. It 
was now the end of May, and with the 
summer Mary Lowther had arrived. 
During the month very little progress 
had been made with the case at Heytes- 
bury. There had been two or three re- 
mands, and now there was yet another. 
The police declared that this was ren- 
dered necessary by the absence of Sam 
Brattle — that the magistrates were anx- 
ious to give all reasonable time for the 
production of the man who was out 
upon bail — and that, as he was un- 
doubtedly concerned in the murder, 
they were determined to have him. 
But they who professed to understand 
the case — among whom were the law- 
yer from Devizes and Mr. Jones of 
Heytesbury — declared that no real 
search had been made for Brattle, be- 
cause the evidence in regard to the 
other men was hitherto insufficient. The 
remand now stood again till Tuesday, 
June the 5th, and it was understood that 
if Brattle did not then appear, the bail 
would be declared to have been forfeited. 
15 


Fenwick had written a very angry 
letter to Lord Trowbridge, to which he 
had got no answer, and Lord Trow- 
bridge had written a very silly letter to 
the bishop, in replying to which the 
bishop had snubbed him. “ I am in- 
formed by my friend, Mr. Gilmore,” 
said the vicar to the marquis, “that 
your lordship has stated openly that I 
have made visits to a young woman in 
Salisbury which are disgraceful to me, - 
to my cloth and to the parish of which 
I am the incumbent. I do not believe 
that your lordship will deny that you 
have done so, and I therefore call upon 
you at once to apologize to me for the 
calumny, which, in its nature, is as in- 
jurious and wicked as calumny can be ; 
and to promise that you will not repeat 
the offence.” The marquis, when he 
received this, had not as yet written 
that letter to the bishop on which he 
had resolved after his interview with 
Gilmore — feeling, perhaps, some qualms 
of conscience, thinking that it might be 
well that he should consult his son, 
though with a full conviction that, if he 
did so, his son would not allow him to 
write to the bishop at all — possibly with 
some feeling that he had been too hard 
upon his enemy, the vicar. But when 

197 



198 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


the letter from Bullhampton reached 
him all feelings of doubt, caution and 
mercy were thrown to the winds. The 
tone of the letter was essentially ag- 
gressive and impudent. It was the 
word calumny that offended him most 
—that and the idea that he, the Mar- 
quis of Trowbridge, should be called 
upon to promise not to commit an 
offence ! The pestilent infidel at Bull- 
hampton, as he called our friend, had 
not attempted to deny the visits to the 
young woman at Salisbury. And the 
marquis had made fresh inquiry, which 
had completely corroborated his pre- 
vious information. He had learned 
Mrs. Stiggs’ address and the name of 
Trotter’s Buildings, which details were 
to his mind circumstantial, corrobora- 
tive and damnatory. Some dim ac- 
count of the battle at the Three Honest 
Men had reached him, and the un- 
doubted fact that Carry Brattle was 
maintained by the vicar. Then he re- 
membered all Fenwick’s old anxiety on 
behalf of the brother, whom the mar- 
quis had taught himself to regard as the 
very man who had murdered his tenant. 
He reminded himself, too, of the mur- 
derer’s present escape from justice by 
aid of this pestilent clergyman; and 
thus became convinced that in dealing 
with Mr. Fenwick, as it* was his un- 
doubted duty to do, he had to deal with 
one of the very worst of the human 
race. His lordship’s mind was one ut- 
terly incapable of sifting evidence — un- 
able even to understand evidence when 
it came to him. He was not a bad man. 
He desired nothing that was not his 
own, and remitted much that was. He 
feared God, honored the queen and 
loved his country. He was not self- 
indulgent. He did his duties as he 
knew them. But he was an arrogant 
old fool, who could not keep himself 
from mischief — who could only be kept 
from mischief by the aid of some such 
master as his son. As soon as he re- 
ceived the vicar’s letter he at once sat 
down and wrote to the bishop. He 
was so sure that he was right that he 
sent Fenwick’s letter to the bishop, 
acknowledging what he himself had 


said at Heytesbury, and justifying it 
altogether by an elaborate account of 
the vicar’s wickedness. “And now, my 
lord, let me ask you,’’ said he, in con- 
clusion, “whether you deem this a pro- 
per man to have the care of souls in the 
large and important parish of Bull- 
hampton ?” 

The bishop felt himself to be very 
much bullied. He had no doubt what- 
ever about his parson. He knew that 
Fenwick was too strong a man to be 
act&d upop beneficially by such advice 
as to his private conduct as a bishop 
might give, and too good a man to 
need any caution as to his conduct. 
“My lord marquis,” he said, in reply, 
“in returning the enclosed letter from 
Mr. Fenwick to your lordship, I can 
only say that nothing has been brought 
before me by your lordship which seems 
to me to require my interference. I 
should be wrong if I did not add to this 
the expression of my opinion that Mr. 
Fenwick is a moral man, doing his duty 
in his parish well, and an example in 
my diocese to be followed, rather than a 
stumbling-block . ’ ’ 

When this letter reached the castle 
Lord St. George was there. The poor 
old marquis was cut to the quick. He 
immediately perceived — so he told him- 
self — that the bishop was an old woman, 
who understood nothing, but he was 
sure that St. George would not look at 
the matter in the same light. And yet 
it was impossible not to tell St. George. 
Much as he dreaded his son, he did 
honestly tell everything to his Mentor. 
He had already told St. George of Fen- 
wick’s letter to him and of his letter to 
the bishop, and George had whistled. 
Now he showed the bishop’s letter to 
his son. St. George read the letter, re- 
folded it slowly, shrugged his shoulders, 
and said, as he returned it to his father, 

“Well, my lord, I suppose you like a 
hornet’s nest.” 

This was the uncomfortable position 
of things at Bullhampton about the be- 
ginning of June, at which time Mary- 
Lowther was again staying with her 
friend, Mrs. F enwick. Carry Brattle was 
still at Salisbury, but had not been seen 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


199 


by the vicar for more than a fortnight. 
The marquis’ letter, backed as it was in 
part by his wife’s counsel, had, much 
to his own disgust, deterred him from 
seeing the girl. His wife, however, had 
herself visited Trotter’s Buildings and 
had seen Carry, taking to her a little 
present from her mother, who did not 
dare to go over to Salisbury to see her 
child, because of words that had passed 
between her and her husband. 

Mrs. Fenwick, on her return home, 
had reported that Carry was silent, sul- 
len and idle, that her only speech was 
an expression of a wish that she was 
dead, and that Mrs. Stiggs had said that 
she could get no good of her. In the 
mean time, Sam Brattle had not yet 
turned up, and the 5th of June was at 
hand. 

Mary Lowther was again at the vicar- 
age, and of course it was necessary that 
she and Mr. Gilmore should meet each 
other. A promise had been made to 
her that no advice should be pressed 
upon her; the meaning of which, of 
course, was, that nothing should be said 
to her urging her to marry Mr. Gilmore. 
But it was of course understood by all 
the parties concerned that Mr. Gilmore 
was to be allowed to come to the house ; 
and, indeed, this was understood by the 
Fenwicks to mean almost as plainly 
that she would at least endeavor to bring 
herself to accept him when he did come. 
To Mary herself, as she made the jour- 
ney, the same meaning seemed to be 
almost inevitable ; and as she perceived 
this she told herself that she had been 
wrong to leave home. She knew — she 
thought she knew — that she must refuse 
him, and in doing so would simply be 
making fresh trouble. Would it not 
have been better for her to have re- 
mained at Coring — to have put herself 
at once on a par with her aunt, and 
have commenced her solitary spinster- 
hood and dull routine ? But then why 
should she refuse him ? She endeavor- 
ed to argue it out with herself in the 
railway carriage. She had been told 
that Walter Marrable 'would certainly 
marry Edith Brownlow, and she be- 
lieved it. No doubt it was much better 


that he should do so. At any rate, she 
and Walter were separated for ever. 
When he wrote to her, declaring his 
purpose of remaining in England, he 
had not said a word of renewing his en- 
gagement with her. No doubt she loved 
him. About that she did not for a mo- 
ment endeavor to deceive herself. No. 
doubt if that fate in life which she most 
desired might be hers, she would be- 
come the wife of Walter Marrable. But 
that fate would not be hers ; and then 
there arose the question whether, on 
that account, she was unfit to be the 
wife of any other man. Of this she was 
quite certain, that should it ever seem 
to her to be her duty to accept the other, 
man, she would first explain to him’’ 
clearly the position in which she found 
herself. At last, the whole matter re- 
solved itself into this : was it possible 
for her to divest her idea of life of all 
romance, and to look for contentment 
and satisfaction in the performance of 
duties to others ? The prospect of an 
old maid’s life at Boring was not pleas- 
ant to her eyes, but she would bear that, 
and worse than that, rather than do 
wrong. It was, however, so hard for 
her to know what was right and what 
was wrong ! Supposing that she were 
to consent to marry Mr. Gilmore, would 
she be forsworn when at the altar she 
promised to love him All her care 
would be henceforth for him — all her 
heart, as far as she could command her 
heart, and certainly all her truth. There 
should not be a secret of her mind hid- 
den from him. She would force her- 
self to love him and to forget that other 
man. He should be the object of all 
her idolatry. She would, in that case, 
do her very utmost to reward him for 
the constancy of the affection with which 
he had regarded her ; and yet, as she 
was driven in at the vicarage gate, she 
told herself that it would have been bet- 
ter, much better, for her to have re- 
mained at Boring. 

During the first evening, Mr. Gilmore’s 
name was not mentioned. There were 
subjects enough for conversation, as the 
period was one of great excitement in 
Bullhampton. 


200 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


“What did you think of our chapel ?” 
asked Mrs. Fenwick. 

“ I had no idea it was so big.” 

“ Why, they are not going to leave us 
a single soul to go to church. Mr. Pud- 
dleham means to make a clean sweep 
of the parish.” 

“You don’t mean to say that any have 
left you ?” 

“Well, none as yet,” replied Mrs. Fen- 
wick. “ But then the chapel isn’t finish- 
ed, and the marquis has not yet sent his 
order to his tenants to become dissent- 
ers. We expect that he will do so, un- 
less he can persuade the bishop to turn 
Frank out of the living.” 

“But the bishop couldn’t turn him 
out.” 

“Of course he couldn’t — and wouldn’t 
if he could. The bishop and Frank are 
the best friends in the world. But that 
has nothing to do with it. You mustn’t 
abuse the chapel to Frank : just at this 
moment the subject is tabooed. My 
belief is, that the whole edifice will have 
to come down, and that the confusion 
of Mr. Puddleham and the marquis will 
be something more complete than ever 
was yet seen. In the mean time, I put 
my finger to my lip and just look at 
Frank whenever the chapel is men- 
tioned.” 

And then there was the matter of the 
murder, and the somewhat sad con- 
sideration of Sam’s protracted absence. 

“ And will you have to pay four hun- 
dred pounds, Mr. Fenwick?” Mary 
asked. 

“ I shall be liable to pay it if he does 
not appear to-morrow, and no doubt 
must absolutely pay it if he does not 
turn up soon.” 

“ But you don’t think that he was one 
of them ?” 

“ I am quite sure he was not. But he 
has had trouble in his family, and he 
got into a quarrel, and I fancy he has 
left the country. The police say that 
he has been traced to Liverpool.” 

“And will the other men be con- 
victed?” Mrs. Fenwick asked. 

“I believe they will, and most fer- 
vently hope so. They have some evi- 
dence about the wheels of a small cart 


in which Burrows certainly, and, I be* 
lieve, no doubt Acorn also, were seen 
to drive across Pycroft Common early 
on the Sunday morning. A part of the 
tire had come off, and another bit, 
somewhat broader, and an inch or so 
too short, had been substituted. The 
impress made by this wheel in the mud 
just round the corner by the farm gate 
was measured and copied at the time, 
and they say that this will go far to 
identify the men. That the man’s cart 
was there is certain ; also that he was 
in the same cart at Pycroft Common an 
hour or two after the murder.” 

“That does seem clear,” said Mary. 

“But somebody suggests that Sam 
had borrowed the cart. I believe, how- 
ever, that it will all come out ; only, if 
I have to pay four hundred pounds, I 
shall think that Farmer Trumbull has 
cost me very dear.” 

On the next morning Gilmore came 
to the vicarage. It had been arranged 
that he would drive Fenwick over to 
Heytesbury, and that he would call for 
him after breakfast. A somewhat late 
hour — two in the afternoon — had been 
fixed for going on with the murder case, 
as it was necessary that a certain con- 
stable should come down from London 
on that morning, and therefore there 
would be no need for the two men to 
start very early from Bullhampton. 
This was explained to Mary by Mrs. 
Fenwick. “He dines here to-day,” she 
had said when they met in the morning 
before prayers, “ and you may as well 
get over the first awkwardness at once.” 
Mary had assented to this, and after 
breakfast Gilmore made his appearance 
among them in the garden. He was 
just one moment alone with the girl he 
loved. 

“Miss Lowther,” he said, “I cannot 
be with you for an instant without tell- 
ing you that I am unchanged.” 

Mary made no reply, and he said 
nothing further. Mrs. Fenwick was 
with them so quickly that there was no 
need for a reply ; and then he was 
gone. During the whole day the two 
friends talked of the murder, and of the 
Brattles, and of the chapel — which was 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


201 


thoroughly inspected from the roof to 
the floor — ^but not a word was said 
about the loves of Harry Gilmore or 
Walter Marrable. Gilmore’s name was 
often mentioned as the whole story was 
told of Lord Trowbridge’s new quarrel 
and of the correspondence with the 
bishop ; of which Fenwick had learned 
the particulars from the bishop’s chap- 
lain. And in the telling of this story 
Mrs. Fenwick did not scruple to express 
her opinion that Harry Gilmore had 
behaved well, with good spirit and 
like a true friend. “If the marquis had 
been anywhere near his own age, I be- 
lieve he would have horse-whipped 
him,” said the vicar’s wife, with that 
partiality for the corporal chastisement 
of an enemy which is certainly not un- 
common to the feminine mind. This 
was all very well, and called for no 
special remark from Mary, and possi- 
bly might have an effect. 

The gentlemen returned late in the 
evening, and the squire dressed at the 
vicarage. But the great event of the 
day had to be told before any one was 
allowed to dress. Between four and 
five o’clock, just as the magistrates 
were going to leave the bench, Sam 
Brattle had walked into court. 

“And your money is safe?” said his 
wife. 

“Yes, my money is safe, but I declare 
I think more of Sam’s truth. He was 
there, as it seemed, all of a sudden. 
The police had learned nothing of him. 
He just walked into the court, and we 
heard his voice. ‘ They tell me I’m 
wanted,’ he said ; and so he gave him- 
self up.” 

“And what was done?” asked his 
wife. 

“It was loo late to do anything; so 
they allowed a remand for another 
week, and Sam was walked off to 
prison.” 

At dinner-time the conversation was 
still about the murder. It had been 
committed after Mary Lowther had left 
Bullhampton, but she had heard all the 
details, and was now as able to be in- 
terested about it as were the others. It 
was Gilmore’s opinion that, instead of 


proceeding against Sam, they would 
put him into the witness-box and make 
him tell what he knew about the pres- 
ence of the other two men. Fenwick 
declared that if they did so, such was 
Sam’s obstinacy that he would tell 
nothing. It was his own idea — as he 
had explained both to his wife and to 
Gilmore — that Carry Brattle could give 
more evidence respecting the murder 
than her brother. Of this he said noth- 
ing at present, but he had informed 
Constable Toffy that if Caroline Brattle 
were wanted for the examination, she 
would be found at the house of Mrs. 
Stiggs. 

Thus for an hour or two the peculiar 
awkwardness of the meeting between 
Harry Gilmore and Mary was removed. 
He was enabled to talk with energy on 
a matter of interest, and she could join 
the conversation. But when they were 
round the tea-table it seemed to be ar- 
ranged by common consent that Trum- 
bull’s murder and the Brattles should, 
for a while, be laid aside. Then Mary 
became silent and Gilmore became 
awkward. When inquiries were made 
as to Miss Marrable, he_ did not know 
whether to seem to claim, or not to 
claim, that lady’s acquaintance. He 
could not, of course, allude to his visit 
to Loring, and yet he could hardly save 
himself from having to acknowledge 
that he had been there. However, the 
hour wore itself away, and he was 
allowed to take his departure. 

During the next two days he did not 
see Mary Lowther. On the Friday he 
met her with Mrs. Fenwick as the two 
were returning from the mill. They 
had gone to visit Mrs. Brattle and 
Fanny, and to administer such comfort 
as was possible in the present circum- 
stances. The poor women told them 
that the father was now as silent about 
his son as about his daughter, but that 
he had himself gone over to Heytesbury 
to secure legal advice for the lad, and 
to learn from Mr. Jones, the attorney, 
what might Be the true aspect of the 
case. Of what he had learned he had 
told nothing to the women at the mill, 
but the two ladies had expressed their 


202 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


strong opinion of Sam’s innocence. All 
this was narrated by Mrs. Fenwick to 
Gilmore, and Mary Lowther was en- 
abled to take her part in the narrative. 

^The squire was walking between the 
two, and it seemed to him as he walked 
that Mary at least had no desire to 
avoid him. He became high in hope, 
and began to wish that even now, at 
this moment, he might be left alone 
with her and might learn his fate. He 
parted from them when they were near 
the village, and as he went he held 
Mary’s nand within his own for a few 
moments. There was no return of his 
pressure, but it seemed to him that her 
hand was left with him almost willingly. 

“What do you think of him?’’ her 
friend said to her as soon as he had 
parted from them. 

“What do I think of him? I have 
always thought well of him.’’ 

“ I know you have : to think other- 
wise of one who is positively so good 
would be impossible. But do you feel 
more kindly to him than you used ?’’ 

“Janet,” said Mary, after pausing a 
while, “you had better leave me alone. 
Don’t be angry with me, but really it 
will be better that you should leave me 
alone.” 

“ I won’t be angry with you, and I 
will leave you alone,” said Mrs. Fen- 
wick. And as she considered this re- 
quest afterward, it seemed to her that 
the very making of such a request im- 
plied a determination on the girl’s part 
to bring herself to accept the man’s 
offer, if it might be possible. 


CHAPTER XLIX. 

MARY LOWTHER’s DOOM. 

The police were so very tedious in 
managing their business, and the whole 
affair of the second magisterial investi- 
gation was so protracted, that people in 
the neighborhood became almost tired 
of it, in spite of that appetite for excite- 
ment which the ordinary quiet life of a 
rural district produces. On the first 
Tuesday in June, Sam had surrendered 
himself at Heytesbury, and on the sec- 


ond Tuesday it was understood that the 
production of the prisoners was only 
formal. The final examination and the 
committal, if the evidence should be 
sufficient, were to take place on the third 
Tuesday in the month. Against this 
Mr. Jones had remonstrated very loudly 
on Sam’s behalf, protesting that the 
magistrates were going beyond their 
power in locking up a inan against 
whom there was no more evidence now 
than there had been when before they 
had found themselves compelled to re- 
lease him on bail. Blit this was of no 
avail. Sam had been released before 
because the men who were supposed to 
have been his accomplices were not in 
custody ; and now that they were in cus- 
tody, the police declared it to be out of 
the question that he should be left at 
large. The magistrates of course agreed 
with the police, in spite of the indigna- 
tion of Mr. Jones. In the mean time, a 
subpoena was served upon Carry Brattle 
to appear on that final Tuesday — Tues- 
day, the nineteenth of June. The po- 
liceman, when he served her with the 
paper, told her that on the morning in. 
question he would come and fetch her. 
The poor girl said not a word as she 
took into her hand the dreadful docu- 
ment. Mrs. Stiggs asked a question or 
two of the man, but got from him no 
information. But it was well known 
in Trotter’s Buildings, and round about 
the Three Honest Men, that Sam Brat- 
tle was to be tried for the murder of Mr. 
Trumbull, and public opinion in that 
part of Salisbury was adverse to Sam. 
Public opinion was adverse, also, to poor 
Carry ; and Mrs. Stiggs was becoming 
almost tired of her lodger, although the 
payment made for her was not ungener- 
ous and was as punctual as the sun. In 
truth, the tongue of the landlady of the 
Three Honest Men was potential in 
those parts, and was very bitter against 
Sam and his sister. 

In the mean time, there was a matter 
of interest which, to our friends at Bull- 
hampton, exceeded even that of the 
Heytesbury examinations. Mr. Gilmore 
was now daily at the vicarage on some 
new or old lover’s pretence. It might 


Mr. Gilmore was now daily at the [Page 202.] 


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THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


203 


be that he stood but for a minute or two 
on the terrace outside the drawing-room 
windows, or that he would sit with the 
ladies during half the afternoon, or that 
he would come down to dinner, some 
’ excuse having arisen for an invitation 
to that effect during the morning. Very- 
little was said on the subject between 
Mrs. Fenwick and Mary Lowther, and 
not a word between the vicar and his 
guest; but between Mr. and Mrs. Fen- 
wick many words were spoken, and be- 
fore the first week was over they were 
sure that she would yield. 

“ I think she will,” said Mrs. Fenwick, 
“but she will do it in agony.” 

“ Then if I were Harry I would leave 
her alone,” said the vicar. 

“ But you are not Harry ; and if you 
were, you would be wrong. She will 
not be happy when she accepts him ; 
but by the time the day fixed for the 
wedding comes round she will have re- 
conciled herself to it, and then she will 
be as loving a wife as ever a man had.” 
But the vicar shook his head and said 
that, so far as he was concerned, love 
of that sort would not have sufficed for 
him. • 

“Of course,” said his wife, “it is very 
pleasant for a man to be told that the 
woman he loves is dying for him, but 
men can’t always have everything that 
they want.” 

Mary Lowther at this time became 
subject to a feeling of shame which al- 
most overwhelmed her. There grew 
upon her a consciousness that she had 
allowed herself to come to Bullhampton 
on purpose that she might receive a re- 
newed offer of marriage from her old 
lover, and that she had done so because 
her new and favored lover had left her. 
Of course she must accept Mr. Gilmore. 
Of that she had now become quite sure. 
She had come to Bullhampton — so she 
now told herself — ^because she had been 
taught to believe that it would not be 
right for her to abandon herself to a 
mode of life which was not to her taste. 
All the friends in whose judgment she 
could confide expressed to her in every 
possible way their desire that she should 
marry this man ; and now she had made 


this journey with the view of following 
their counsel. So she thought of her- 
self and her doings ; but such was not 
in truth the case. When she first de- 
termined to visit Bullhampton she was 
very far from thinking that she would 
accept the man. Mrs. Fenwick’s argu- 
ment, that she should not be kept away 
from Bullhampton by fear of Mr. Gil- 
more, had prevailed with her, and she 
had come. And now that she was there, 
and that this man was daily with her, it 
was no longer possible that she should 
refuse him. And, after all, what did it 
matter ? She was becoming sick of the 
importance which she imputed to her- 
self in thinking of herself. If she could 
make the man happy, why should she 
not do so? The romance of her life 
had become to her a rhodomontade of 
which she was ashamed. What was 
her love that she, should think so much 
about it ? What did it mean ? Could 
she not do her duty in the position in 
life in which her friends wished to place 
her, without hankering after a something 
which was not to be bestowed on her ? 
After all, what did it all matter ? She 
would tell the man the exact truth as 
well as she knew how to tell it, and 
then let him take her or leave her as he 
listed. 

And she did tell him the truth after 
the following fashion. It came to pass 
at last that a day and an hour were fixed 
in which Mr. Gilmore might come to the 
vicarage and find Mary alone. There 
were no absolute words arranging this 
to which she was a party, but it was un- 
derstood. She did not even pretend an 
unwillingness to receive him, and had 
assented by silence when Mrs. Fenwick 
had said that the man should be put 
out of his suspense. Mary, when she 
was silent, knew well that it was no 
longer within her power to refuse him. 

He came and found her alone. He 
knew too — or fancied that he knew — 
what would be the result of the inter- 
view. She would accept him, without 
protestations of violent love for himself, 
acknowledging what had passed be- 
tween her and her cousin, and ’proffer- 
ing to him the offer of future affection. 


204 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


He had pictured it all to himself, and 
knew that he intended to accept what 
would be tendered. There were draw- 
backs in the happiness which was in 
store for him, but still he would take 
what he could get. As each so nearly 
understood the purpose of the other, it 
was almost a pity that the arrangement 
could not be made without any words 
between them — words which could hard- 
ly be pleasant either in the speaking or 
in the hearing. 

He - had determined that he would 
disembarrass himself of all preliminary 
flourishes in addressing her, and had 
his speech ready as he took her by the 
hand. “Mary,” he said, “you know 
why I am here?” Of course she made 
no reply. “ I told you when I first saw 
you again that I was unchanged.” 
Then he paused, as though he expected 
that she would answer him, but still she 
said nothing. “Indeed I am unchanged. 
When you were here before I told you 
that I could look forward to no happi- 
ness unless you would consent to be 
my wife. That was nearly a year ago, 
and I have come again now to tell you 
the same thing. I do not think but 
what you will believe me to be in 
earnest.” 

“ I know that you are in earnest,” 
she said. 

“No man was ever more so. My 
constancy has been tried during the 
time that you have been away. I do 
not say so as a reproach to you. Of 
course there can be no reproach. I 
have nothing to complain of in your 
conduct to me. But I think I may say 
that if my regard for you has outlived 
the pain of those months, there is some 
evidence that it is sincere.” 

“ I have never doubted your sin- 
cerity.” 

“Nor can you doubt my constancy.” 

“ Except in this, that it is so often that 
we want that which we have not, and 
find it so little worthy of having when 
we get it.” 

“You do not say that from your heart, 
Mary. If you mean to refuse me again, 
it is not* because you doubt the reality 
of my love.” 


“ I do not mean to refuse you again, 
Mr. Gilmore.” Then he attempted to 
put his arm round her waist, but she 
recoiled from him, not in anger, but 
very quietly and with a womanly grace 
that was perfect. “ But you must hear 
me first, before I can allow you to take 
me in the only way in which I can be- 
stow myself. I have been steeling my- 
self to this, and I must tell you all 
that has occurred since we were last 
together.” 

“ I know it all,” said he, anxious that 
she should be spared — anxious also that 
he himself should be spared the pain of 
hearing that which she was about to say 
to him. 

But it was necessary for her that she 
should say it. She would not go to him 
as his accepted mistress upon other 
terms than those she had already pro- 
posed to herself. “Though you know 
it, I must speak of it,” she said. “I 
should not otherwise be dealing hon- 
estly either with you or with myself. 
Since I saw you last I have met my 
cousin. Captain Marrable. I became 
attached to him with a quickness which 
I Cannot even myself understand. I 
loved him dearly, and we were engaged 
to be married.” 

“You wrote to me, Mary, and told 
me all that.” This he said, striving to 
hide the impatience which he felt, but 
striving in vain. 

“ I did so, and now I have to tell you 
that that engagement is at an end. Cir- 
cumstances occurred — a sad loss of in- 
come that he had expected — which 
made it imperative on him, and also on 
me in his behalf, that we should aban- 
don our hopes. He would have been 
ruined by such a marriage; and it is 
all over.” Then she paused, and he 
thought that she had done ; but there was 
more to be said — words heavier to be 
borne than any which she had yet utter- 
ed. “And I love him still. I should lie if 
I said that it was not so. If he were free 
to marry me this moment; I should go 
to him.” As she said this there came a 
black cloud across his brow, but he 
stood silent to hear it all to the last. 
“My respect and esteem for you are 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


boundless,” she continued, ‘‘but he has 
my heart. It is only because I know 
that I cannot be his wife that I have 
allowed myself to think whether it is 
my duty to become the wife of another 
man. After what I now say to you I 
do not expect that you will persevere. 
Should you do so you must give me 
time.” Then she paused, as though it 
were now his turn . to speak, but there 
was something further that she felt her- 
self bound to say, and, as he was still 
silent, she continued : ‘‘ My friends — 
those whom I most trust in the world, 
my aunt and Janet Fenwick — tell me 
that it will be best for me to accept your 
offer. I have made no promise to either 
of them. I would tell my mind to no 
one till I told it to you. I believe I owe 
as much to you, almost, as a woman 
can owe to a man ; but still, were my 
cousin so placed that he could afford to 
marry a poor wife, I should leave you 
and go to him at once. I have told you 
everything now ; and if, after this, you 
can think me worth having, I can only 
promise that I will endeavor, at some 
future time, to do my duty to you as 
your wife.” Then she had finished, and 
she stood before him waiting her doom. 

His brow had become black and still 
blacker as she continued her speech. 
He had kept his eyes upon her without 
quailing for a moment, and had hoped 
for some moment of tenderness, some 
spark of feeling, at seeing which he 
might have taken her in his arms and 
have stopped the sternness of her 
speech. But she had been at least as 
strong as he was, and had not allowed 
herself to show the slightest sign of 
weakness. 

‘‘You do not love me, then ?” he said. 

‘‘ I esteem you as we esteem our dear- 
est friends.” 

‘‘And you will never love me ?” 

‘‘ How shall I answer you ? I do love 
you, but not as I love him. I shall 
never again have that feeling.” 

‘‘ Except for him ?” 

‘‘ Except for him. If it is to be con- 
quered, I will conquer it. I- know, Mr. 
Gilmore, that what I have told you will 
drive you from me. It ought to do so.” 


205 

‘‘It is for me to judge' of that,” he 
said, turning upon her quickly. 

‘‘ In judging for myself I have thought 
it right to tell you the exact truth, and to 
let you know what it is that you would 
possess if you should choose to take 
me.” Then again she was silent, and 
waited for her doom. 

There was a pause of perhaps a cou- 
ple of minutes, during which he made 
no reply. He walked the length of the 
room twice, slowly, before he uttered a 
word, and during that time he did not 
look at her. Had he chosen to take 
an hour, she would not have interrupted 
him again. She had told him every- 
thing, and it was for him now to decide. 
After what she had said he could not 
but recall his offer. How was it pos- 
sible that he should desire to make a 
woman his wife after such a declaration 
as that which she had made to him ? 

‘‘And now,” he said, “ it is for me to 
decide ?” 

‘‘Yes, Mr. Gilmore, it is for you to 
decide.” 

‘‘Then,” said he, coming up to her 
and putting out his hand, ‘‘you are my 
betrothed. May God in his mercy soft- 
en your heart to me, and enable you to 
give me some return for all the love 
that I bear you !” She took his hand 
and raised it to her lips and kissed it, 
and then had left the room before he 
was able to stop her. 


CHAPTER L. 

MARY LOWTHER INSPECTS HER FUTURE 
HOME. 

Of course it was soon known in the 
vicarage that Mary Lowther had ac- 
cepted the squire’s hand. She had left 
him standing in the drawing-room — ^had 
left him very abruptly, though she had 
condescended to kiss his hand. Perhaps 
in no way could she have made a kind- 
er reply to his petition for mercy. In 
ordinary cases it is probably common 
for a lady, when she has yielded to a 
gentleman’s* entreaties for the gift of 
herself, to yield also something further 
for his immediate gratification, and to 


2o6 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


submit herself to his embiace. In this 
instance it was impossible that the lady- 
should do so. After the very definite 
manner in which she had explained to 
him her feelings it was out of the ques- 
tion that she should stay and toy with 
him — that she should bear the pressure 
of his arm or return his caresses. But 
there had come upon her a sharp desire 
to show her gratitude before she left 
him — to show her gratitude, and to 
prove, by some personal action toward 
him, that though she had been forced 
to tell him that she did not love him — 
that she did not love him after the fash- 
ion in which his love was given to her 
— yet that he was dear to her as our 
dearest friends are dear. And there- 
fore, when he had stretched out his 
hand to her in sign of the offer which 
he was making her, she had raised it to 
her lips and kissed it. 

Very shortly after she had left the room 
Mrs. Fenwick came to him. “Well, Har- 
ry,” she said, coming up close to him 
and looking into his eyes to see how it 
had fared with him, “ tell me that I may 
wish you joy^” 

“ She has promised that she will be 
my wife,” he said. 

“And is not that what you have so 
long wished ?” 

“Yes, indeed.” 

“Then why are you not elated?” 

“ I- have no doubt she will tell you 
all. But do not suppose, Mrs. Fenwick, 
that I am not thankful. She has be- 
haved very well, and she has accepted 
me. She has explained to me in what 
way her acceptance has been given, 
and I have submitted to it.” 

“ Now, Harry, you are going to make 
yourself wretched about some romantic 
trifle ?” 

“ I am not going to make myself mis- 
erable at all. I am much less miserable 
than I could have believed to be possible 
six months ago. She has told me that 
she will be my wife, and I do not for a 
moment think that she will go back from 
her word.” 

“ Then what is it ?” 

“ I have not won her as other men do. 
Never mind : I do not mean to com- 


plain. Mrs, Fenwick, I shall trust you 
to let me know when she will be glad to 
see me here.” 

“ Of course you will come when you 
like and how you like. You must be 
quite at home here.” 

“As far as you and Frank are con- 
cerned, that would be a matter of course 
to me. But it cannot be so — yet — in re- 
gard to Mary. At any rate, I will not 
intrude upon her till I know that my 
coming will not be a trouble to her.” 
After this it was not necessary that Mrs. 
Fenwick should be told much more of 
the manner in which these new betroth- 
als had been made. 

Mary was, of course, congratulated 
both by the vicar and his wife, and she 
received their congratulations with a dig- 
nity of deportment which, even from her, 
almost surprised them. She said scarce- 
ly a word, but smiled as she was kissed 
by each of them, and did whisper some- 
thing as to her hope that she might be 
able to make Mr. Gilmore happy. There 
was certainly no triumph, and there was 
no visible sign of regret. When she was 
asked whether she would not wish that 
he should come to the vicarage, she de- 
clared that she would have him come 
just as he pleased : if she only knew 
of his coming beforehand, she would 
take care that she would be within to 
receive him. Whatever might be his 
wishes, she would obey them. Mrs. 
Fenwick suggested that Gilmore would 
like her to go up to the Privets and look 
at the house which was to be her future 
home. She promised that she would go 
with him at any hour that he might ap- 
point. Then there was something said 
as to fixing the day of the wedding. “ It 
is not to be immediately,” she replied; 
“ he promised me that he would give me 
time.” “ She speaks of it as though she 
was going to be hung,” the vicar said 
afterward to his wife. 

On the day after her engagement she 
saw Gilmore, and then she wrote to her 
aunt to tell her the tidings. Her letter 
was very short, and had not Miss Mar- 
rable thoroughly understood the cha- 
racter of her niece, and the agony of 
the struggle to which Mary was now 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


207 


subjected, it would have seemed to be 
cold and ungrateful. “ My dear aunt,” 
said the letter, ‘‘yesterday I accepted 
Mr. Gilmore’s offer. I know you will 
be glad to hear this, as ; ou have always 
thought that I ought to do so. No time 
has been fixed for the wedding, but it 
will not be very soon. I hope I may do 
my duty to him and make him happy ; 
but I do not know whether I should not 
have been more useful in remaining with 
my affectionate aunt.” That was the 
whole letter, and there was no other 
friend to whom she herself communi- 
cated the tidings. It occurred to her 
for a moment that she would write to 
Walter Marrable, but Walter Marrable 
had told her nothing of Edith Brown- 
low. Walter Marrable would learn the 
news fast enough. And then the writ- 
ing of such a letter would not have been 
very easy to her. 

On the Sunday afternoon, after church, 
she walked up to the Privets with her 
lover. The engagement had been made 
on the previous Thursday, and this was 
the first occasion on which she had been 
alone with him for more than a minute 
or two at a time since she had then 
parted from him. They started imme- 
diately from the churchyard, passing 
out through the gate which led into Mr. 
Trumbull’s field, and it was understood 
that they were to return for an early din- 
ner at the vicarage. Mary had made 
many resolutions as to this walk. She 
would talk much, so that it might not 
be tedious and melancholy to him ; she 
would praise everything, and show the 
interest which she took in the house 
and grounds ; she would ask questions, 
and display no hesitation as to claiming 
her own future share of possession in all 
that belonged to him. She went off at 
once -as soon as she was through the 
wicket gate, asking questions as to the 
division of the property of the parish 
between the two owners, as to this field 
and that field, and the little wood which 
they passed, till her sharp intelligence 
told her that she was overacting her 
part. He was no actor, but iincon- 
sciously he perceived her effort; and 
he resented it, unconsciously also, by 


short answers and an uninterested tone. 
She was aware of it all, and felt that 
there had been a mistake. It would be 
better for her to leave the play in his 
hands and to adapt herself to his moods. 

‘‘We had better go straight up to the 
house,” he said, as soon as the pathway 
had led them off Lord Trowbridge’s land 
into his own domain. 

‘‘ I think we had,” said she. 

‘‘ If we go round by the stables, it will 
make us late for Fenwick’s dinner.” 

‘‘We ought to be back by half-past 
two,” she said. They had left the 
church exactly at half-past twelve, and 
were therefore to be together for two 
hours. 

He took her over the house. The 
showing of a house in such circum- 
stances is very trying both to the man 
and to the woman. He is weighted by 
a mixed load of prid-e in his possession 
and of assumed humility. She, to 
whom every detail of the future nest is 
so vitally important, is almost bound to 
praise, though every encomium she pro- 
nounces will be a difficulty in the way 
of those changes which she contem- 
plates. But on the present occasion 
Mary contemplated no change. Mar- 
rying this man, as she was about to do, 
professedly without loving him, she was 
bound to take everything else as she 
found it. The dwelling-rooms of the 
house she had known before — the din- 
ing-room, the drawing-room and the 
library. She was now taken into his 
private chamber, where he sat as a 
magistrate, and paid his men, and kept 
his guns and fishing-rods. Here she 
sat down for a moment, and when he 
had told her this and that — how he was 
always here for so long in the morning, 
and how he hoped that she would come 
to him sometimes when he was thus 
busy — he came and stood over her, 
putting his hand upon her shoulder. 
‘‘Mary,” he said, ‘‘will you not kiss 
me ?” 

‘‘Certainly I will,” she said, jumping 
up and offering her face to his salute. 
A month or two ago he would have 
given the world for permission to kiss her, 
and now it seemed as though the thing 


2o8 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


itself were a matter of but little joy. A 
kiss to be joyful should be stolen, with 
a conviction on the part of the offender 
that she who has suffered the loss will 
never prosecute the thief. She had 
meant to be good to him, but the favor 
would have gone farther with him had 
she made more of it. 

Then they went up stairs. Who does 
not know the questions that were asked 
and that were answered ? On this oc- 
casion they were asked and answered 
with matter-of-fact useful earnestness. 
The papers on the walls were perhaps 
old and ugly, but she did not mind it 
if they were so. If he liked to have 
the rooms new-papered, of course it 
would be nice. Would she like new 
furniture ? Did she object to the old- 
fashioned four-post bedsteads ? Had 
she any special taste about hangings 
and colors ? Of course she had, but 
she could not bring herself to indulge 
them by giving orders as to this or that. 
She praised everything, was satisfied 
with everything, was interested in every- 
thing, but would propose no changes. 
What right had she, seeing that she was 
to give him so .little, to ask him to do 
this or that for her ? She meant on this 
occasion to do all that she could for his 
happiness, but had she ordered new 
furniture for the whole house, begged 
that every room might be fresh papered, 
and pointed out that the paneling was 
old and must be altered, and the entire 
edifice repainted inside and out, he 
would have been a happier man. “I 
hope you will find it comfortable,” he 
said in a tone of voice that was beyond 
measure lugubrious. 

” I am sure that I shall,” she replied. 
“What more can any woman want than 
there is here ? And then there are so 
many comforts to which I have never 
been used !” 

This passed between them as they 
stood on the steps of the house, looking 
down upon green paddocks in front of 
the house. “ I think we will come and 
see the gardens another day,” he said. 

‘‘Whenever you like,” she answered. 
‘‘Perhaps if we stay now we shall be 
keeping them waiting.” Then, as they 


returned by the road, she remembered 
an account that Janet Fenwick had 
given her of a certain visit which Janet 
had made to the vicarage as Miss Bal- 
four, and of all the joys of that inspec- 
tion. But what right had she, Mary 
Lowther, to suppose that she could 
have any of the same pleasure ? Janet 
Balfour, in her first visit to the vicar- 
age, had been to see the home in which 
she was to live with the man to whom 
her whole heart had been given without 
reserve. 


CHAPTER LI. 

THE GRINDER AND HIS COMRADE. 

As the day drew near for the final 
examination at Heytesbury of the sus- 
pected murderers — the day on which it 
was expected that either all the three 
prisoners, or at least two of them, would 
be committed to take their trial at the 
summer assizes — the vicar became anx- 
ious as to the appearance of Carry 
Brattle in the court. At first he enter- 
tained an idea that he would go over to 
Salisbury and fetch her, but his wife 
declared that this was imprudent and 
quixotic, and that he shouldn’t do it. 
Fenwick’s argument in support of his 
own idea amounted to little more than 
this — that he would go for the girl be- 
cause the Marquis of Trowbridge would 
be sure to condemn him for taking such 
a step. ‘‘It is intolerable to me,” he 
said, ‘‘that I should be impeded in my 
free action by the interference and ac- 
cusations of such an ass as that.” But 
the question was one on which his wife 
felt herself to be so strong that she 
would not yield either to his logic or to 
his anger : ‘‘ It can’t be fit for you to go 
about and fetch witnesses ; and it«won’l 
make it more fit because she is a pretty- 
young woman who has lost her charac- 
ter.” ‘ ‘ Honi soit qui fnal y pense, ” said 
the vicar. But his wife was resolute, 
and he gave up the plan. He wrote, 
however, to the constable at Salisbury, 
begging the man to look to the young 
woman’s comfort, and offering to pay 
for any special privilege or accommo- 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


209 


dation that might be accorded to her. 
This occurred on the Saturday before 
the day on which Mary Lowther was 
taken up to look at her new home. 

The Sunday passed by with more or 
less of conversation respecting the mur- 
der, and so also the Monday morning, 
The vicar had himself been summoned 
to give his evidence as to having found 
Sam Brattle in his own garden, in com- 
pany with another man with whom he 
had wrestled, and whom he was able 
to substantiate as the Grinder ; and in- 
deed the terrible bruise made by the 
vicar’s life-preserver on the Grinder’s 
back would be proved by evidence 
from Lavington. On the Monday even- 
ing he was sitting, after dinner, with 
Gilmore, who had dined at the vicar- 
age, when he was told that a constable 
from Salisbury wished to see him. The 
constable was called into the room, and 
soon told his story. He had goVie up 
to Trotter’s Buildings that day after 
dinner, and was told that the bird had 
flown. She had gone out that morning, 
and Mrs. Stiggs knew nothing of her 
departure. When they examined the 
room in which she slept, they found 
that she had taken what little money 
she possessed and her best clothes. 
She had changed her frock and put on 
a pair of strong boots, and taken her 
cloak with her. Mrs. Stiggs acknow- 
ledged that had she seen the girl going 
forth thus provided her suspicions would 
have been aroused, but Carry had man- 
aged to leave the house without being 
observed. Then the constable went on 
tc^say that Mrs. Stiggs had told him 
that she had been sure that Carry 
would go. “ I’ve been a-waiting for it 
all along,” she had said; “but when 
there came the law-rumpus atop of the 
other, I knew as how she’d hop the 
twig.” And now Carry Brattle had 
hopped the twig, and no one knew 
whither she had gone. There was 
much sorrow at the vicarage, for Mrs. 
Fenwick, though she had been obliged 
to restrain her husband’s impetuosity in 
the matter, had nevertheless wished well 
for the poor girl ; and who could not 
believe aught of her now but that she 


would return to misery and degrada- 
tion ? When the constable was inter- 
rogated as to the n^d for her attendance 
on the morrow, he declared that noth- 
ing could now be done toward finding 
her and bringing her to Heytesbury in 
time for the magistrates’ session. He 
supposed there would be another re- 
mand, and that then she too would be 
— wanted. 

But there had been so many remands 
that on the Tuesday the magistrates 
were determined to commit the men, 
and did commit two of them. Against 
Sam there was no tittle of evidence, ex- 
cept as to that fact that he had been 
seen with these men in Mr. Fenwick’s 
garden ; and it was at once proposed 
to put him into the witness-box, instead 
of proceeding against him as one of the 
murderers. As a witness he was ad- 
judged to have behaved badly, but the 
assumed independence of his demeanoi- 
was probably the worst of his misbe- 
havior. He would tell them nothing 
of the circumstances of the murder, ex- 
cept that, having previously become ac- 
quainted with the two men. Burrows 
and Acorn, and having, as he thought, 
a spite against the vicar at the time, he 
had determined to make free with some 
of the vicarage fruit. He had, he said, 
met the men in the village that after- 
noon, and had no knowledge of their 
business there. He had known Acorn 
more intimately than the other man, 
and confessed at last that his acquaint- 
ance with that man had arisen from a 
belief that Acorn was about to marry 
his sister. He acknowledged that he 
knew that Burrows had been a convicted 
thief, and that Acorn had been punished 
for horse-stealing. When he was asked 
how it had come to pass that he was 
desirous of seeing his sister married to 
a horse-stealer, he declined to answer, 
and, looking round the court, said that 
he hoped there was no man there who 
would be coward enough to say any- 
thing against his sister. They who 
heard him declared that there was more 
of a threat than a request expressed in 
his words and manner. 

A question was put to him as to his 


210 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON, 


knowledge of Farmer Trumbull’s mon- 
ey. “There was them as knew, but I 
knew nothing,” he said. He was press- 
ed on this point by t!ie magistrates, but 
would say not a word further. As to 
this, however, the police were indiffer- 
ent, as they believed that they would 
be able to prove at the trial, from other 
sources, that the mother of the man 
called the Grinder had certainly re- 
ceived tidings of the farmer’s wealth. 
There were many small matters of evi- 
dence to which the magistrates trusted. 
One of the men had bought poison, and 
the dog had been poisoned. The pres- 
ence of the cart at the farmer’s gate was 
proved, and the subsequent presence 
of the two men in the same cart at Py- 
croft Common. The size of the foot- 
prints, the characters and subsequent 
flight of the men, and certain damaging 
denials and admissions which they them- 
selves had made, all went to make up 
the case against them, and they were 
committed to be tried for the murder. 
Sam, however, was. allowed to go free, 
being served, however, with a subpoena 
to attend at the trial as a witness. “ I 
will,” said he, “if you send me down 
money • enough to bring me up from 
South Shields and take me back again. 
I ain’t a-corning on my own hook, as I 
did this time ; and wouldn’t now, only 
for Muster Fenwick.” Our friends left 
the police to settle this question with 
Sam, and then drove home to Bull- 
hampton. 

The vicar was triumphant, though 
his triumph was somewhat quelled by 
the disappearance of Carry Brattle. 
There could, however, be no longer any 
doubt that Sam Brattle’s innocence as 
to the murder was established. Head 
Constable Toffy had himself acknow- 
ledged to him that Sam could have had 
no hand in it. 

“ I told you so from the beginning,” 
said the vicar. 

“ We . ’as got the right uns, at any 
rate,” said the constable ; “ and it wasn’t 
none of our fault that we hadn’t ’em 
before.” But though Constable Toffy 
was thus honest, there were one or two 
in Heytesbury on that day who still 


persisted in declaring that Sam was one 
of the murderers. Sir Thomas Char- 
leys stuck to that opinion to the last ; 
and Lord Trowbridge, who had again 
sat upon the bench, was quite convinced 
justice was being shamefully robbed 
of her due. 

When the vicar reached Bullhamp- 
ton, instead of turning into his own 
place at once, he drove himself on to 
the mill. He dropped Gilmore at the 
gate, but he could not bear that the 
father and mother should not know im- 
mediately, from a source which they 
would trust, that Sam had been declared 
innocent of that great offence. Driving 
round by the road, Fenwick met the 
miller about a quarter of a mile from 
his own house. “ Mr. Brattle,” he said, 
“they have committed the two men.” 

“Have they, sir?” said the miller, 
not condescending to ask a question 
about his own son. 

“ As I have said all along, Sam had 
no more to do with it than you or I.” 

“You have been very good. Muster 
Fenwick.” 

“Come, Mr. Brattle, do not pretend 
that this is not a comfort to you.” 

“A comfort as my son ain’t proved a 
murderer ! If they’d ha’ hanged ’im, 
Muster Fenwick, that’d ha’ been bad, 
for certain. It ain’t much of comfort 
we has, but there may be a better and 
a worser in everything, no doubt. I’m 
obleeged to you, all as one. Muster 
Fenwick — very much obleeged; and it 
will take a heavy load off his mother’s 
heart.” Then the vicar turned his gig 
round and drove himself home. 


CHAPTER LII. 

CARRY brattle’s JOURNEY. 

Mrs. Stiggs had been right in her 
surmise about Carry Brattle. The con- 
finement in Trotter’s Buildings and 
want of interest in her life was more 
than the girl could bear, and she had 
been thinking of escape almost from 
the first day that she had been there. 
Had it not been for the mingled fear 
and love with which she regarded Mr. 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON, 


2II 


Fenwick, had she not dreaded that he 
should think her ungrateful, she would 
have flown even before the summons 
came to her which told her that she 
must appear before the magistrates and 
lawyers, and among a crowd of people 
in the neighborhood of Jier old home. 
That she could not endure, and there- 
fore she had flown. When it had been 
suggested to her that she should go and 
live with her brother’s wife as her ser- 
vant, that idea had been hard to bear. 
But there had been uncertainty, and an 
opinion of her own, which proved to be 
right, that her sister-in-law would not 
receive her. Now about this paper that 
the policemen had handed to her and 
the threatened journey to Heytesbury 
there was no uncertainty, unless she 
might possibly escape the evil by run- 
ning away. Therefore she ran away. 

The straight-going people of the world, 
in dealing with those who go crooked, 
are almost always unreasonable. “ Be- 
cause you have been bad,” say they 
who are not bad to those who are bad, 
“because you have hitherto indulged 
yourself with all pleasures within your 
reach, because you have never worked 
steadily or submitted yourself to re- 
straint, because you have been a drunk- 
ard and a gambler and have lived in 
foul company, therefore now — now that 
I have got a hold of you and can man- 
ipulate you in reference to your repent- 
ance and future conduct — I will require 
from you a mode of life that, in its gen- 
eral attractions, shall be about equal to 
that of a hermit in the desert. If you 
flinch, you are not only a monster of 
ingratitude toward me, who am taking 
all this trouble to save you, but you are 
also a poor wretch for whom no possi- 
ble hope of grace can remain.” When 
it is found that a young man is neglect- 
ing his duties, doing nothing, spending 
his nights in billiard-rooms and worse 
places, and getting up at two o’clock in 
the day, the usual prescription of his 
friends is, that he should lock himself 
up in his own dingy room, drink tea 
and spend his hours in reading good 
books. It is hardly recognized that a 
sudden change from billiards to good 
16 


books requires a strength of character 
which, if possessed, would probably 
have kept the young man altogether 
from falling into bad habits. If we left 
the doors of our prisons open, and then 
expressed disgust because the prisoners 
walked out, we should hardly be less 
rational. The hours at Mrs. Stiggs’ 
house had been frightfully heavy to poor 
Carry Brattle, and at last she escaped. 

It was half-past ten on the Monday 
morning when she went out. It was 
her custom to go out at that hour. Mr. 
Fenwick had desired her to attend the 
morning services at the cathedral. She 
had done so for a day or two, and had 
then neglected them. But she had still 
left the house always at that time ; and 
once, when Mrs. Stiggs had asked some 
question on the subject, she had replied 
almost, in anger that she was not a 
prisoner. On this occasion she made 
changes in her dress which were not 
usual, and therefore she was careful to 
avoid being seen as she went, but had 
she been interrogated she would have 
persevered. Who had a right to stop 
her ? 

But where should she go ? The reader 
may perhaps remember that once, when 
Mr. Fenwick first found this poor girl 
after her flight from home and her great 
disgrace, she had expressed a desire to 
go to the mill and just look at it, even 
if she might do no more than that. 
The same idea was now in her mind, 
but as she left the city she had no con- 
certed plan. There were two things be- 
tween which she must choose at once— - 
either to go to London or not to go to 
London. She had money enough for 
her fare, and perhaps a few skillings 
over. In a dim way she did under- 
stand that the choice was between 
going to the devil at once and not 
going quite at once ; and then, weakly, 
wistfully, with uncertain step, almost 
without an operation of her mind, she 
did not take the turn which, from the 
end of Trotter’s Buildings, would have 
brought her to the railway station, but 
did take that which led her by the 
Three Honest Men out on to the De- 
vizes road — the road which passes 


212 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


across Salisbury Plain, and leads from 
the city to many Wiltshire villages, of 
which Bullhampton is one. 

She walked slowly, but she walked 
nearly the whole day. Nothing could 
be more truly tragical than the utterly 
purposeless tenor of her day and of her 
whole life. She had no plan — nothing 
before her ; no object even for the even- 
ing and night of that very day in which 
she was wasting her strength on the De- 
vizes road.* It is the lack of object, of 
all aim, in the lives of the houseless 
wanderers that gives to them the most 
terrible element of their misery. Think 
of it ! To walk forth with, say, ten shil- 
lings in your pocket — so that there need 
be no instant suffering from want of 
bread or shelter — and have no work to 
do, no friend to see, no place to expect 
you, no duty to accomplish, no hope to 
follow, no bourn to which you can draw 
nigher, except that bourn which, in 
such circumstances, the traveler must 
surely regard as simply the end of his 
weariness ! But there is nothing to 
which humanity cannot attune itself. 
Men can live upon poison, can learn to 
endure absolute solitude, can bear con- 
tumely, scorn and shame, and never 
show it. Carry Brattle had already 
become accustomed to misery, and as 
she walked she thought more ’of the 
wretchedness of the present hour, of 
her weary feet, of her hunger, and of 
the nature of the rest which she might 
purchase for herself at some poor way- 
side inn, than ^she did of her future life. 

She got a lump of bread and a glass 
of beer in the middle of the day, and 
then she walked on and on till the 
evening came. She went very slowly, 
stopping often and sitting down when 
the roadside would afford her some 
spot of green shade. At eight o’clock 
she had walked fifteen miles straight 
along the road, and, as she knew well, 
had passed the turn which would have 
taken her by the nearest way from 
Salisbury to Bullhampton. She had 
formed no plan, but entertained a hope 
that if she continued to walk they would 
not catch her, so as to take her to 
Heytesbury on the morrow. She knew 


that if she went on she might get to 
Pycroft Common by this road ; and 
though there was no one in the whole 
world whom she hated worse than Mrs. 
Burrows, still at Pycroft Common she 
might probably be taken in and shel- 
tered. At eight she reached a small 
village which she remembered to have 
seen before, of which she saw the name 
written up on a board, and which she 
knew to be six miles from Bullhamp- 
ton. She was so tired and weary that 
she could go no farther, and here she 
asked for a bed. She told them that 
she was walking from Salisbury to the 
house of a friend who lived near De- 
vizes, and that she had thought she . 
could do it in one day and save her 
railway fare. She was simply asked to 
pay for her bed and supper beforehand, 
and then she was taken in and fed and 
sheltered. On the next morning she 
got up very late and was unwilling to 
leave the house. She paid for her 
breakfast, and, as she was not told to 
go her way, she sat on the chair in 
which she had been placed, without 
speaking, almost without moving, till 
late in the afternoon. At three o’clock 
she roused herself, asked for some 
bread and cheese, which she put in 
her pocket, and started again upon her 
journey. She thought that she would 
be safe, at any rate for that day, from 
the magistrates and the policemen, from 
the sight of her brother and from the 
presence of that other man at Heytes- 
bury. But whither she would go when 
she left the house — whether on to the 
hated cottage at Pycroft Common or to 
her father’s house — she had not made 
up her mind when she tied on her hai 
She went on along jthe road toward De- 
vizes, and about two miles from the vil- 
lage she came to a lane turning to the 
left, with a finger-post. On this was 
written a direction — To Bullhampton 
and Imber ; and here she turned short 
off toward the parish in which she had 
been born. It was then four o’clock, 
and when she had traveled a mile far- 
ther she found a nook under the wall 
of a little bridge, and there she seated 
herself and ate her dinner of bread and 



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THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


213 


cheese. While she was there a police- 
man on foot passed along the road. 
The man did not see her, and had he 
seen her wpuld have taken no more 
than a policeman’s ordinary notice of 
her ; but she saw him, and in conse- 
quence did not leave her hiding-place 
for hours. 

About nine o’clock she crept on 
again, but even then her mind was not 
made up. She did not even yet know 
where she would bestow herself for that 
night. It seemed to her that there 
would be an inexpressible pleasure to 
her, even in her misery, in walking 
round the precincts of the mill, in gaz- 
ing at the windows of the house, in 
standing on the bridge where she had 
so often loitered, and in looking once 
more on the scene of her childhood. 
But as she thought of this she remem- 
bered the darkness of the stream, and 
the softly-gurgling but rapid flow with 
which it hurried itself on beneath the 
black abyss of the building. She had 
often shuddered as she watched it, in- 
dulging herself in the luxury of cause- 
less trepidation. But now, were she 
there, she would surely take that plunge 
into the blackness which would bring 
her to the end of all her misery ! 

And yet, as she went on toward her 
old home through the twilight, she had 
no more definite idea than that of look- 
ing once more on the place which had 
been cherished in her memory through 
all her sufferings. As to her rest for 
the night, she had no plan, unless, in- 
deed, she might find her rest in the hid- 
den mill-pool of thafdark, softly-gurg- 
ling stream. 

On that same day, between six and 
seven in the evening, the miller was 
told by Mr. Fenwick that his son was 
no longer accused of the murder. He 
had not received the information in the 
most gracious manner, but not the less 
quick was he in making it known at 
the mill. “Them dunderheads over at 
He’tsbry has found out at last as our 
Sam had now’t to do with it.’’ This he 
said, addressing no one in particular, 
but in the hearing of his wife and Fanny 
Brattle. Then there came upon him a 


torrent of questions and a torrent also 
of tears. Mrs. Brattle and Fanny had 
both made up their minds that Sam was 
innocent, but the mother had still feared 
that he would be made to suffer in spite 
of his innocence. Fanny, however, had 
always persisted that the goodness of 
the Lord would save him and them 
from such injustice. To the old man 
himself they had hardly dared to talk 
about it, but now they strove to win him 
to some softness. Might not a struggle 
be made to bring Sam back to the mill ? 
But it was very hard to soften the miller. 
“After what’s come and gone, the lad is 
better away,’’ he said at last. “ I didn’t 
think as he’d ever raised his hand again 
an old man,’’ he said shortly afterward, 
“but he’s kep’ company with them as 
did. It’s a’most as bad.’’ Beyond this 
the miller would not go ; but when they 
separated for the night the mother took 
herself for a while into the daughter’s 
chamber, in order that they might weep 
and rejoice together. It was now all 
but midsummer, and the evenings were 
long and sultry. The window of Fan- 
ny’s bed-room looked out on to the gar- 
den of the mill, and was but a foot or 
two above the ground. This ground 
had once been pleasant to them all, 
and profitable withal. Of late, since 
the miller had become old, and Sam 
had grown to be too restive and self- 
willed to act as desired for the general 
welfare of the family, but little of pleas- 
ure, or profit either, had been forth- 
coming from the patch of ground. 
There were a few cabbages there, and 
rows of untended gooseberry and cur- 
rant bushes, and down toward the orch- 
ard there was a patch of potatoes ; but 
no one took pride now in the garden. 
As for Fanny, if she could provide that 
there should always be a sufficient meal 
on the table for her father and mother, 
it was as rhuch as she could do. The 
days were clean gone by in which she 
had had time and spirits to tend her 
roses, pinks and pansies. Now she sat 
at the open window with her mother, 
and with bated breath they spoke of 
the daughter and sister that was lost to 
them. 


214 


THE VICAR OF.BULLHAMPTON. 


“He wouldn’t take it amiss, mother, 
if I was to go over to Salisbury ?’’ 

“If you was to ask him. Fan, he’d 
bid you not,’’ said the mother. 

“ But I wouldn’t ask him. I wouldn’t 
tell him till I was back. She was to 
be before the magistrates to-day. Mr. 
Fenwick told me so on Sunday.’’ 

“ It will about be the death of her.’’ 

“ I don’t know, mother. She’s bold- 
er now, mother, I fear, than what she 
was in old days. And she was always 
sprightly — speaking up to the quality 
with no fear like. Maybe it wasfwhat 
she said that got them to let Sam go. 
She was never a coward, such as me.’’ 

“Oh, Fan, if she’d only ha’ taken after 
thee !’’ 

“The Lord, mother, makes us differ- 
ent for purposes of his own. Of all the 
lasses I ever see, to my eyes she was the 
comeliest.’’ The old woman couldn’t 
speak now, but rubbed her moist cheeks 
with her raised apron. “I’ll ask Mr. 
Toffy to-morrow, mother,’’ continued 
Fanny, “and if she be still at that place 
in Salisbury where Mr. Fenwick put 
her, I’ll just go to her. Father won’t 
turn me out of the house along of it.’’ 

“Turn thee out, Fan! He’ll never 
turn thee out. What’d he do, or what’d 
I do if thee was to go away from us ? 
If thou dost go. Fan, take her a few bits 
of things that are lying there in the big 
press, and’ll never be used other gait. 
I warrant the poor child’ll be but badly 
off for under-clothing.’’ 

And then they planned how the jour- 
ney on the morrow should be made — 
after the constable should have been 
questioned and the vicar should have 
been consulted. Fanny would leave 
home immediately after breakfast, and 
when the miller should ask after her at 
dinner his wife should tell him that his 
daughter had gone to Salisbury. If 


further question should be asked — and 
it was thought possible that no further 
question would be asked, as the father 
would then guess the erran^ on which 
his daughter would have gone — but if 
the subject was further mooted, Mrs. 
Brattle, with such courage as she might 
be able to assume, should acknowledge 
the business that had taken Fanny to 
Salisbury. Then there arose questions 
about money. Mr. Fenwick had own- 
ed, thinking that he might thereby edse 
the mother’s heart, that for the present 
Carry was maintained by him. To take 
this task upon themselves the mother 
and daughter were unable. The money 
which they had in hand, very small in 
amount, was, they knew, the property 
of the family. That they could do no 
permanent good to Carry was a great 
grief. But it might be something if 
they could comfort her for a while. 

“ I don’t think but what her heart’ll 
still be soft to thee. Fan; and who 
knows but what it may bring her round 
to see thy face and hear thy voice ?’’ 

At that moment Fanny heard a sound 
in the garden, and stretched her head 
and shoulders quickly out of the win- 
dow. They had been late at the mill 
that evening, and it was now eleven 
o’clock. It had been still daylight when 
the miller had left them at tea, but the 
night had crept on them as they had sat 
there. There was no moon, but there 
was still something left of the reflection 
of the last colors of the setting sun, and 
the night was by no means dark. Fan- 
ny saw at once the figure of a woman, 
though she did not at once recognize 
the person of her sister. “ Oh, mother I 
oh, mother! oh, mother!’’ said a voice 
from the night ; and in a moment Car- 
ry Brattle had stretched herself so far 
within the window that she had grasped 
her mother by the arm. 



PART VIII. 



CHAPTER LIII. 

THE FATTED CALF. 

M rs. brattle, when she heard 
her daughter’s voice, was so con- 
founded, dismayed and frightened that 
for a while she could give no direction 
as to what should be done. She had 
screamed at first, having some dim idea 
in her mind that the form she saw was 
not of living flesh and blood. And 
Carry herself had been hardly more 
composed or mistress of herself than 
her mother. She had strayed thither, 
never having quite made up her mind 
to any settled purpose. From the spot 
in which she had hidden herself under 
the bridge when the policeman passed 
her she had started when the evening 
sun was setting, and had wandered on 
slowly till the old familiar landmarks 
of the parish were reached. And then 
she came to the river, and looking 
across could just see the eaves of the mill 
through the willows by the last gloam- 
ing of the sunlight. Then she stood 
and paused, and every now and again 
had crept on a few feet as her courage 
came to her ; and at last, by the well- 
known little path, she had crept down 
behind the mill, crossing the stream by 


I the board which had once been so ac- 
customed to her feet, and had rhade Jiei 
way into the garden, and had heard her 
mother and sister as they talked to- 
gether at the open window. Any idea 
which she had hitherto entertained of 
not making herself known to them at 
the mill — of not making herself known, 
at any rate, to her mother and sister — 
left her at once at that moment. There 
had been upon her a waking dream, a 
horrid dream, that the waters of the 
mill-stream might flow over her head, 
and hide her wickedness and her misery 
from the eyes of men ; and she had 
stood and shuddered as she saw the 
river, but she had never really thought 
that her own strength would suffice for 
that termination to her sorrows. It was 
more probable that she would be doom- 
ed to lie during the night beneath a 
hedge, and then perish of the morning 
cold. But now, as she heard the voices 
at the window, there could be no choice 
for her but that she should make her- 
self known — not though her father 
should kill her. 

Even Fanny was driven beyond the 
strength of her usual composure by the 
strangeness of this advent. “ Carry ! 
Carry !” she exclaimed over and over 



2i6 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


again, not aloud — and indeed her voice 
was never loud — ^but with bated wonder. 
The two sisters held each other by the 
hand, and Carry’s other hand still grasp- 
ed her mother’s arm. “Oh, mother, I 
am so tired !’’ said the girl. “Oh, moth- 
er, I think that I shall die !’’ 

“My child — my poor child! What 
shall we do. Fan ?’’ 

“ Bring her in, of course,’’ said Fanny. 

“But your father — ’’ 

“We couldn’t turn her away from the 
very window, and she like that, mother.’’ 

“Don’t turn me away, Fanny. Dear 
Fanny, do not turn me away,’’ said 
Carry, striving to take her sister by the 
other hand. 

“No, Carry, we will not,” said Fan- 
ny, trying to settle her mind to some 
plan of action. Any idea of keeping 
the thing long secret from her father she 
knew that she could not entertain, but 
for this night she resolved at last that 
shelter should be given to the discarded 
daughter without the father’s knowledge. 
But even in doing this there would be 
difficulty. Carry must be brought in 
through the window, as any disturbance 
at the front of the house would arouse 
the miller. And then Mrs. Brattle must 
be made to go to her own room, or her 
absence would create suspicion and con- 
fusion. Fanny, too, had terrible doubts 
as to her mother’s powers of going to her 
bed and lying there without revealing 
to her husband that some cause of great 
excitement had arisen. And then it 
might be that the miller would come to 
his daughter’s room and insist that the 
outca'st should be made an outcast 
again, even in the middle of the night. 
He was a man so stern, so obstinate, 
so unforgiving, so masterful, that Fanny, 
though she would face any danger as 
regarded herself, knew that terrible 
things might happen. It seemed to her 
that Carry was very weak. If their 
father came to them in his wrath, might 
she not die in her despair ? Nevertheless 
it was necessary that something should 
be done. “We must let her get in at 
the window, mother,” she said. “It 
won’t do, nohow, to unbar the door.” 

“ But what if he was to kill her out- 


right ? Oh, Carry ! oh, my child ! I 
dunna know as she can get in along of 
her weakness.” But Carry was not so 
tired as that. She had been in and out 
of that window scores of times; and 
now, when she heard that the permis- 
sion was accorded to her, she was not 
long before she was in her mother’s 
arms. “ My own Carry I my own 
bairn I — my girl, my darling !” And 
the poor mother satisfied the longings 
of her heart with infinite caresses. 

Fanny in the mean time had crept out 
to the kitchen, and now returned with 
food in a plate, and cold tea. “My 
girl,” she said, “you must eat a bit, and 
then we will have you to bed. When the 
morn comes, we must think about it.” 

“ Fanny, you was always the best that 
there ever was,” said Carry, speaking 
from her mother’s bosom. 

“And now, 'mother,” continued Fan- 
ny, “you must creep off. Indeed you 
must, or of course father’ll wake up. 
And, mother, don’t say a word to-mor- 
row when he rises. I’ll go to him in 
the mill myself. That’ll be best.” 
Then, with longings that could hardly 
be repressed, with warm, thick, clinging 
kisses, with a hot, rapid, repeated as- 
surance that everything, everything had 
been forgiven — that her own Carry was 
once more her own, own Carry — the 
poor mother allowed herself to be ban- 
ished. There seemed to her to be such 
a world of cruelty in the fact that Fanny 
might remain for the whole of that night 
with the dear one who had returned to 
them, while she must be sent away, per- 
haps not to see her again if the storm 
in the morning should rise too loudly ! 
Fanny, with great craft, accompanied 
her mother to her room, so that if the 
old man should speak she might be 
there to answer ; but the miller slept 
soundly after his day of labor, and never 
stirred. 

“What will he do to me. Fan?” the 
wanderer asked as soon as her sister 
returned. ' 

“Don’t think of it now, my pet,” said 
Fanny, softened almost as her mother 
was softened by the sight of her sister. 

“Will he kill me. Fan ?” 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


217 


“No, dear; he will not lay a hand 
upon you. .It is his words that are 
so rough ! Carry, Carry, will you be 
good?” 

“ I will, dear — indeed I will. I have 
not been bad since Mr. Fenwick came.” 

“ My sister, if you will be good I will 
never leave you. My heart’s darling, 
my beauty, my pretty one ! Carry, you 
shall be the same to me as always, if 
you’ll be good. I’ll never cast it up 
again you, if you’ll be good.” Then 
she, too, filled herself full and satisfied 
the hungry craving of her love with the 
warmth of her caresses. “But thee’ll 
be famished, lass. I’ll see thee eat a 
bit, and then I’ll put thee comfortable 
to bed.” 

Poor Carry Brattle was famished, and 
ate the bread and bacon which were set 
before her, and drank the cold tea, with 
an appetite which was perhaps unbe- 
coming the romance of her position. 
Her sister stood over her, cutting a slice 
now and then from the loaf, telling her 
that she had taken nothing, smoothing 
her hair, and wishing for her sake that 
the fare were better. “I’m afeard of- 
father. Fan — awfully ; but for all that, 
it’s the sweetest meal as I’ve had since 
I left the mill.” Then Fanny was on 
her knees beside the returned profligate, 
covering even the dear one’s garments 
with her kisses. 

It was late before Fanny laid herself 
down by her sister’s side that night. 
“Carry,” she whispered when her sis- 
ter was undressed, “will you kneel here 
and say your prayers as you used to ?” 
Carry, without a word, did as she was 
bidden, and hid her face upon her 
hands in her sister’s lap. No word was 
spoken out loud, but Fanny was satis- 
•fied that her sister had been in earnest. 
“Now sleep, my darling, and when I’ve 
just tidied your things for the morning, 

I will be with you.” The wanderer 
again obeyed, and in a few moments 
the work of the past two days befriended 
her and she was asleep. Then the sis- 
ter went to her task with the soiled frock 
and the soiled shoes, and looked up 
things clean and decent for the morrow. 
It would be at any rate well that Carry 


should appear before her father without 
the stain of the road upon her. 

As the lost one lay asleep there, with 
her soft ringlets all loose upon the pil- 
low, still beautiful, still soft, lovely, 
though an outcast from the dearest 
rights of womanhood, with so much of 
innocence on her brow, with so much 
left of the grace of childhood, though 
the glory of the flower had been destroy- 
ed by the unworthy hand that had rav- 
ished its sweetness, Fanny, sitting in the 
corner of the room over her work, with 
' her eye from moment to moment turned 
upon the sleeper, could not keep her 
mind from wandering away in thoughts 
on the -strange destiny of woman. She 
knew that there had been moments in 
her life in which her great love for her 
sister had been tinged with envy. No 
young lad had ever waited in the dusk 
to hear the sound of her footfall — no 
half-impudent but half-bashful glances 
had ever been thrown after her as she 
went through the village on her busi- 
ness. To be a homely, household 
thing, useful indeed in this world, and 
with high hopes for the future, but 
still to be a drudge — that had been her 
destiny. There was never a woman to 
^hom the idea of being loved was not 
the sweetest thought that her mind could 
produce. Fate had made her plain, 
and no man had loved her. The same 
chance had made Carry pretty — the 
belle of the village, the acknowledged 
beauty of Bullhampton. And there she 
lay — a thing said to be so foul that even 
a father could not endure to have her 
name mentioned in his ears ! And yet, 
how small had been her fault compared 
with other crimes for which men and 
women are forgiven speedily, even if it 
has been held that pardon has ever 
been required ! 

She came over and knelt down and 
kissed her sister on her brow ; and as 
she did so she swore to herself that by 
her, even in the inmost recesses of her 
bosom. Carry should never be held to 
be evil, to be a castaway, to be one of 
whom, as her sister, it would behoove 
her to be ashamed. She had told Carry 
that she would “never cast it up against 


2i8 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


her.” She now resolved that there 
should be no such casting up even in 
her own judgment. Had she too been 
fair, might not she also have fallen ? 

At five o’clock on the following morn- 
ing the miller went out from the house 
to his mill, according to his daily prac- 
tice. Fanny heard his heavy step, 
heard the bar withdrawn, heard the 
shutters removed from the kitchen win- 
dow, and knew that her father was as 
yet in ignorance of the inmate who 
had been harbored. Fanny at once 
arose from her bed, careful not to dis- 
turb her companion. She had thought 
it all out — ^whether she would have 
Carry ready dressed for an escape 
should it be that her father would de- 
mand imperiously that she should be 
sent adrift from the mill, or whether it 
might not be better that she should be 
able to plead at the first moment that 
her sister was in bed, tired, asleep — at 
any rate undressed — and that some little 
time must be allowed ? Might it not be 
that even in that hour her father’s heart 
might be softened ? But she must lose 
no time in going to him. The hired 
man who now tended the mill with her 
father came always at six, and that 
which she had to say to him must be 
said with no ear to hear her but his own. 
It would have been impossible even for 
her to remind him of his daughter be- 
fore a stranger. She slipped her clothes 
on, therefore, and within ten minutes 
of her father’s departure followed him 
into the mill. 

The old man had gone aloft, and she 
heard his slow, heavy feet as he was 
moving the sacks which were above her 
head. She considered for a moment, 
and thinking it better that she should 
not herself ascend the little ladder — 
knowing that it might be well that she 
should have the power of instant retreat 
to the house — she called to him from 
below. 

“What’s wanted now?” demanded 
the old man as soon as he heard her. 

“Father, I must speak to you,” she 
said. “Father, you must come down 
to me.” Then he came down slowly, 
without a word, and stood before her, 


waiting to hear her tidings. “Father,” 
she said, “there is some one in the house, 
and I have come to tell you.” 

“Sam has come, then?” said he; and 
she could see that there was a sparkle 
of joy in his eye as he spoke. Oh, if 
she could only make the return of that 
other child as grateful to him as would 
have been the return of his son ! 

“No, father, it isn’t Sam.” 

“Who be it, then ?” The tone of his 
voice and the color and bearing of his 
face were changed as he asked the 
question. She saw at once that he had 
guessed the truth. “ It isn’t — it isn’t — ?” 

“Yes, father, it is Carry.” As she 
spoke she came close to him and strove 
to take his hand, but he thrust both his 
hands into his pockets and turned him- 
self half away from her. “Father, she 
is our flesh and blood : you will not turn 
against her, now that she has come back 
to us and is sorry for her faults ?” 

“She is a — ” But his other daugh- 
ter had stopped his mouth with her 
hand before the word had been uttered. 

“Father, who among us has not done 
wrong at times ?” 

“She has disgraced my gray hairs, 
and made me a reproach and a shame. 
I will not see her. Bid her begone. I 
will not speak to her or look at her. 
How came she there ? When did she 
come ?” 

Then Fanny told her father the whole 
story — everything as it occurred — and 
did not forget to add her own convic- 
tion that Carry’s life had been decent in 
all respects since the vicar had found a 
home for her in Salisbury. “ You would 
not have it go on like that, father ? She 
is naught to our parson.” 

“I will pay. As long as there is a 
shilling left, I will pay for her. She 
shall not live on the charity of any 
man, whether parson or no parson. 
But I will not see her. While she be 
here you may just send me my vittals 
to the mill. If she be not gone afore 
night, I will sleep here amongthe sacks.” 

She stayed with him till the laborer 
came, and then she returned to the 
house, having failed as yet to touch his 
heart. She went back and told her 



'•^'■Father,' she said. 


‘ if I may bide with you 
[Page 219.] 


if I may bide with you—d^’^ 


» 





THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


219 


story to her mother, and then a part of 
it to Carry, who was still in bed. In- 
deed, she had found her mother by 
Carry’s bedside, and had to wait till 
she could separate them before she 
could tell any story to either. “What 
does he say of me. Fan?” asked the 
poor sinner. “ Does he say that I must 
go ? Will he never speak to me again ? 
I will just throw myself into the mill- 
race and have done with it.” Her sis- 
ter bade her rise and dress herself, but 
to remain where she was. It could not 
be expected, she said, but that their 
father would be hard to persuade. “ I 
know that he will kill me when he sees 
me,” said Carry. 

At eight o’clock, Fanny took the old 
man his breakfast to the mill, while 
Mrs. Brattle waited on Carry as though 
she had deserved all the good things 
which a mother could do for a child. 
The miller sat upon a sack at the back 
of the building, while the hired man 
took his meal of bread and cheese in 
the front, and Fanny remained close at 
his elbow. While the old man was eat- 
ing she said nothing to him. He was 
very slow, and sat with his eyes fixed 
upon the morsel of sky which was vis- 
ible through the small aperture, think- 
ing evidently of anything but the food 
that he was swallowing. Presently he 
returned the empty bowl and plate to 
his daughter, as though he were about 
at once to resume his work. Hitherto 
he had not uttered a single word since 
she had come to him. 

“Father,” she said, “think of it. Is 
it not good to have mercy and to for- 
give ? Would you drive your girl out 
again upon the streets ?” 

The miller still did not speak, but turn- 
ed his face round upon his daughter with 
a gaze of such agony that she threw her- 
self on -the sack beside him and clung 
to him with her arms round his neck. 

“If she were such as thee. Fan !” he 
said. “Oh, if she were such as thee!” 
Then again he turned away his face, 
that she might not see the tear that was 
forcing itself into the corner of his eye. 

She remained with him an hour before 
he moved. His companion in the mill 


did not come near them, knowing, as the 
poor do know on such occasions, there 
was something going on which would 
lead them to prefer that he should be 
absent. The words that were said be- 
tween them were not very many, but at 
the end of the hour Fanny returned to 
the house. 

“Carry,” she said, “father is coming 
in.” 

“ If he looks at me it will kill me,” 
said Carry. 

Mrs. Brattle was so lost in her hopes 
and fears that she knew not what to do 
or how to bestow herself. A minute 
had hardly passed when the miller’s 
step was heard, and Carry knew that 
she was in the presence of her father. 
She had been sitting, but now she rose 
and went to him and knelt at his feet. 

“Father,” she said, “if I may bide 
with you — if I may bide with you — ” 
But her voice was lost in sobbing, and 
she could make no promise as to her 
future conduct. 

“She may stay with us,” the father 
said, turning to his eldest daughter, 
“ but I shall never be able to show my 
face again about the parish.” 

He had uttered no words of forgive- 
ness to his daughter, nor had he be- 
stowed upon her any kiss. Fanny had 
raised her when she was on the ground 
at his feet, and had made her seat her- 
self apart. 

“In all the whole world,” he said, 
looking round upon his wife and his 
elder child, raising his hand as he ut- 
tered the words, and speaking with an 
emphasis that was terrible to the hear- 
ers, “there is nothing so vile as a har- 
lot.” All the dreaded fierceness of his 
manner had then come back to him, 
and neither of them had dared to an- 
swer him. After that he at once went 
back to the mill, and to Fanny, who 
followed him, he vouchsafed to repeat 
the permission that his daughter should 
be allowed to remain beneath his roof. 

Between twelve and one she again 
went to fetch him to his dinner. At 
first he declared that he would not 
come, that he was busy, and that he 
would eat a morsel where he was, in 


220 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


the mill. But Fanny argued the mat- 
ter with him: 

“ Is it always to be so, father ?” 

“ I do not know. What matters it, so 
as I have strength to do a turn of work ?” 

“It must not be that her presence 
should drive you from the house. 
Think of mother, and what she will 
suffer. Father, you must come.” 

Then he allowed himself to be led 
into the house, and he sat in his accus- 
tomed chair and ate his dinner in gloomy 
silence. But after dinner he would not 
smoke. 

“I tell ’ee, lass, I’do not want the pipe 
to-day. Now’t has got itself done. D’ye 
think as how grist’ll grind itself without 
hands ?” 

When Carry said that it would be 
better than this that she should go again, 
Fanny told her to remember that evil 
things could not be cured in a day. 
With the mother that afternoon was, on 
the whole, a happy time, for she sat 
with her lost child’s hand within her 
own. Late in the evening, when the 
miller returned to his rest. Carry moved 
about the house softly, resuming some 
old task to which in former days she 
had been accustomed ; and as she did 
so the miller’s eyes would wander round 
the room after her, but he did not speak 
to her on that day, nor did he pronounce 
her name. 

Two other circumstances which bear 
upon our story occurred at the mill that 
afternoon. After their tea, at which the 
miller did not make his appearance, 
Fanny Brattle put on her bonnet and 
ran across the fields to the vicarage. 
After all the trouble that Mr. Fenwick 
had taken, it was, she thought, neces- 
sary that he should be told what had 
happened. 

“That is the best news,” said he, “that 
I have heard this many a day.” 

“ I knew that you would be glad to 
hear that the poor child has found her 
home again.” Then Fanny told the 
whole story — ^how Carry had escaped 
from Salisbury, being driven to do so 
by fear of the law-proceedings at which 
she had been summoned to attend — how 
her father had sworn that he would not 


yield, and how at length he had yielded. 
When Fanny told the vicar and Mrs. 
Fenwick that the old man had as yet 
not spoken to his daughter, they both 
desired her to be of good cheer. 

“That will come, Fanny,” said Mrs. 
Fenwick, “if she once be allowed to sit 
at table with him.” 

“Of course it will come,” said the 
vicar. “ In a week or two you will find 
that she is his favorite.” 

“ She was the favorite with us all, sir, 
once,” said Fanny, “and may God send 
that it shall be so again ! A winsome 
thing like her is made to be loved. 
You’ll come and see her, Mr. Fenwick, 
some day?” Mr. Fenwick promised 
that he would, and Fanny returned to 
the mill. 

The other circumstance was the ar- 
rival of Constable Toffy at the mill dur- 
ing Fanny’s absence. In the course of 
the day news had traveled into the vil- 
lage that Carry Brattle was again at the 
mill ; and Constable Toffy, who, in re- 
gard to the Brattle family was somewhat 
discomfited by the transactions of the 
previous day at Heytesbury, heard the 
news. He was aware — ^being in that 
respect more capable than Lord Trow- 
bridge of receiving enlightenment — that 
the result of all the inquiries made in 
regard to the murder did, in truth, con- 
tain no tittle of evidence against Sam. 
As constables go. Constable Toffy was 
a good man, and he would be wronged 
if it were to be said of him that he re- 
gretted Sam’s escape ; but his nature 
was as is the nature of constables, and 
he could not rid himself of that feeling 
of disappointment which always attends 
baffled efforts. And though he saw that 
there was no evidence against Sam, he 
did not therefore necessarily think that 
the young man was innocent. It may 
be doubted whether, to the normal po- 
liceman’s mind, any man is ever alto- 
gether absolved of any crime with which 
that man’s name has been once con- 
nected. He felt, therefore, somewhat 
sore against the Brattles ; and then there 
was the fact that Carry Brattle, who had 
been regularly “subpoenaed,” had kept 
herself out of the way, most flagitiously 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


221 


illegally and damnably. She had run 
off from Salisbury just as though she 
were a free person to do as she pleased 
with herself, and not subject to police 
orders ! When, therefore, he heard 
that Carry was at the mill — she having 
made herself liable to some terribly 
heavy fine by her contumacy — it was 
manifestly his duty to see after her and 
let her know that she was wanted. 

At the mill he saw only the miller 
himself, and his visit was not altogether 
satisfactory. Old Brattle, who under- 
stood very little of the case, but who did 
understand that his own son had been 
made clear in reference to that accusa- 
tion, had no idea that his daughter had 
any concern with that matter other than 
what had fallen to her lot in reference 
to her brother. When, therefore. Toffy 
inquired after Caroline Brattle, and de- 
sired to know whether she was at the 
mill, and also was anxious to be in- 
formed why she had not attended at 
Heytesbury in accordance with the re- 
quirements of the law, the miller turned 
upon him and declared that if anybody 
said a word against Sam Brattle in refer- 
» ence to the murder — the magistrates 
having settled that matter — he, Jacob 
Brattle, old as he was, would “see. it 
out” with that malignant slanderer. 
Constable Toffy did his best to make 
the matter clear to the miller, but failed 
utterly. Had he a warrant to search 
for anybody ? Toffy had no warrant. 
Toffy only desired to know whether 
Caroline Brattle was or was not beneath 
her father’s roof. The old miller, de- 
claring to himself that, though his child 
had shamed him, he would not deny 
her, now that she was again one of the 
family, acknowledged so much, but re- 
fused the constable admittance to the 
house. 

“But, Mr. Brattle,” said the consta- 
ble, “she was subpoenaed.” 

“ I know now’t o’ that,” answered the 
miller, not deigning to turn his face 
round to his antagonist. 

“ But you know, Mr. Brattle, the law 
must have its course.” 

“No I don’t. And it ain’t law as 
you should com^ here a-hindering o’ 


me ; and it ain’t law as you should walk 
that unfortunate young woman off with 
you to prison.” 

“But she’s wanted, Mr. Brattle — not 
in the way of going to prison, but be- 
fore the magistrates. 

“There’s a deal of things is wanted 
as ain’t to be had. Anyways, you ain’t 
no call to my house now, and as them 
as is there is in trouble. I’ll ax* you 
to be so kind as — as just to leave us 
alone.” 

Toffy, pretending that he was satisfied 
with the information received, and mere- 
ly adding that Caroline Brattle must cer- 
tainly, at some future time, be made to 
appear before the magistrates at Heytes- 
bury, took his departure with more 
good-humor than the miller deserved 
from him, and returned to the village. 


CHAPTER LIV. 

MR. GILMORE’S RUBIES. 

Mary Lowther struggled hard for a 
week to reconcile herself to her new 
fate, and at the end of the week had 
very nearly given way. The gloom 
which had fallen upon her acted upon 
her lover and then reacted upon herself. 
Could he have been light in hand, could 
he have talked to her about ordinary 
subjects) could he have behaved toward 
her with any even of the light courtesies 
of the every-day lover, she would have 
been better able to fight her battle. 
But when he was with her there was a 
something in his manner which always 
seemed to accuse her in that she, to 
whom he was giving so much, would 
give him nothing in return. He did 
not complain in words. He did not 
willfully resent her coldness to him. 
But he looked, and walked, and spoke, 
and seemed to imply by every deed 
that he was conscious of being an in- 
jured man. At the end of the week he 
made her a handsome present, and in 
receiving it she had to assume some 
pleasure. But the failure was complete, 
and each of the two knew how great 
was the failure. Of course there would 
be other presents. And he had already 


222 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


— already, though no allusion to the 
day for the marriage had yet been made 
— begun to press on for those changes in 
his house for which she would not ask, 
but which he was determined to effect 
for her comfort. There had been an- 
other visit to the house and gardens, and 
he had told her that this should be done, 
unless she objected, and that that other 
change should be made, if it were not 
opposed to her wishes. She made an at- 
tempt to be enthusiastic — enthusiastic on 
the wrong side — to be zealous to save him 
money — and the whole morning was be- 
yond measure sad and gloomy. Then 
she asked herself whether she meant to 
go through with it. If not, the sooner 
that she retreated and hid herself and 
her disgrace for the rest of her life the 
better. She had accepted him at last 
because she had been made to believe 
that by doing so she would benefit him, 
and because she had taught herself to 
think that it was her duty to disregard 
herself. She had thought of herself till 
she was sick of the subject. What did 
it matter — about herself— as long as she 
could be of some service to some one ? 
And so thinking, she had accepted him. 
But now she had begun to fear that 
were she to marry this man she could 
not be of service to him. And when 
the thing should be done — if ever it 
were done — there would be no' undoing 
it. Would not her life be a life of sin 
if she were to live as the wife of a man 
whom she did not love, while perhaps 
she would be unable not to love another 
man ? 

Nothing of all this was told to the 
vicar, but Mrs. Fenwick knew what was 
going on in her friend’s mind, and spoke 
her own very freely. “ Hitherto,” she 
said, ” I have given you credit all 
through for good c.onduct and good 
feeling ; but I shall be driven to con- 
demn you if you now a ’ w a foolish, 
morbid, sickly idea to interfere with his 
happiness and your own.” 

‘‘ But what if I can do nothing for his 
happiness ?” 

‘‘ That is nonsense. He is not a man 
whom you despise or dislike. If you 
will only meet him half-way, you will 


soon find that your sympathies will 
grow.” 

‘‘ There never will be a spark of sym- 
pathy between us.” 

” Mary, that is most horribly wicked. 
What you mean is this, that he is not 
light and gay as a lover. Of course he 
remembers the occurrences of the last 
six months. Of course he cannot be so 
happy as he might have been had Wal- 
ter Marrable never been at Loring. 
There must be something to be con- 
quered, something to be got over, after 
such an episode. But you may set your 
face against doing that, or you may 
strive to do it. For his sake, if not for 
your own, the struggle should be made.” 

“ A man may struggle to draw a load- 
ed wagon, but he won’t move it.” 

” The load in this case is of your own 
laying on. One hour of frank kind- 
ness on your part would dispel his 
gloom. He is not gloomy by nature.” 

Then Mary Lowther tried to achieve 
that hour of frank kindness, and again 
failed. She failed, and was conscious 
of her failure ; and there came a time 
— and that within three weeks of her 
engagement — in which she had all but * 
made up her mind to return the ring 
which he had given her, and to leave 
Bullhampton for ever. Could it be 
right that she should marry a man that 
she did not love ? 

That was her argument with herself, 
and yet she was deterred from doing as 
she contemplated by a circumstance 
which could have had no effect on that 
argument. She received from her aunt 
Marrable the following letter, in which 
was certainly no word capable of mak- 
ing her think that now, at last, she could 
love the man whom she had promised 
to marry. And yet this letter so affected 
her that she told herself that she would 
go on and become the wife of Harry 
Gilmore. She would struggle yet again 
and force herself to succeed. The 
wagon, no doubt, was heavily laden, 
but still, with sufficient labor, it might 
perhaps be moved. 

Miss Marrable had been asked to go 
over to Dunripple when Mary Lowther 
went to Bullhampton, It had been long 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


223 


since she had been there, and she had 
not thought ever to make such a visit. 
But there came letters, and there were 
rejoinders, which were going on be- 
fore Mary’s departure ; and at last it 
was determined that Miss Marrable 
should go to Dunripple and pay a visit 
to her cousin. But she did not do this 
till long after Walter Marrable had left 
the place. She had written to Mary 
soon after her arrival, and in this first 
letter there had been no word about 
Walter; but in her second letter she 
spoke very freely of Walter Marrable, 
as the reader shall see : 

“ Dunripple, 2d July, 1868. 

Dear Mary ; 

“ I got your letter on Saturday, and 
cannot help wishing that it had been 
written in better spirits. However, I do 
not doubt but that it will all come right 
soon. I am quite sure that the best 
thing you can do is to let Mr. Gilmore 
name an early day. Of course you 
never intended that there should be a 
long engagement. Such a thing, where 
there is no possible reason for it, must 
be out of the question. And it will be 
much better to take advantage of the 
fine weather than to put it off till the 
winter has nearly come. Fix some day 
in August or early in September. I am 
sure you will be much happier married 
than you are single ; and he will be 
gratified, which is, I suppose, to count 
for something. 

“ I am very happy here, but yet I long 
to get home. At my time of life one 
must always be strange among strangers. 
Nothing can be kinder than Sir Gregory, 
in his sort of fashion. Gregory Mar- 
rable, the son, is, I fear, in a bad way. 
He is unlike his father, and laughs at his 
own ailments, but everybody in the house 
— except perhaps Sir Gregory — ^knows 
that he is very ill. He never comes 
down at all now, but lives in two rooms, 
which he has together up stairs. We 
go and see him every day, but he is 
hardly able to talk to any one. Sir Gre- 
gory never mentions the subject to me, 
but Mrs. Brownlow is quite confident 
that if anything were to happen to Gre- 
17 


gory Marrable, Walter would be asked 
to come to Dunripple as the heir, and 
to give up the army altogether. 

“ I get on very well with Mrs. Brown- 
low, but of course we cannot be like old 
friends. Edith is a very nice girl, but 
rather shy. She never talks about her- 
self, and is too silent to be questioned. 
I do not, however, doubt for a moment 
but that she will be Walter Marrable’s 
wife. I think it likely that they are not 
engaged as yet, as in that case I think 
Mrs. Brownlow would tell me ; but 
many things have been said which leave 
on my mind a conviction that it will be 
so. He is to be here again in August, 
and from the way in which Mrs. Brown- 
low speaks of his coming, there is no 
doubt that she expects it. That he paid 
great attention to Edith when he was 
here before, I am quite sure ; and I take 
it he is only waiting till — ” in writing so 
far Miss Marrable had intended to sig- 
nify that Captain Marrable had been 
slow to ask Edith Brownlow to be his 
wife while at Dunripple, because he 
could not bring himself so soon to show 
himself indifferent to his former love ; 
but that now he would not hesitate, 
knowing, as he would know, that his 
former love had bestowed herself else- 
where ; but in this there would have been 
a grievous accusation against Mary, and 
she was therefore compelled to fill up 
her sentence in some other form — ^“till 
things should have arranged themselves 
a little. 

“And it will be all for the best. She 
is a very nice, quiet, lady-like girl, and 
so great a favorite with her uncle that 
should his son die before him his great 
object in life will be her welfare. Wal- 
ter Marrable, as her husband, would 
live at Dunripple just as though the 
place were his own. And indeed there 
would be no one between him and the 
property except his own father. Some 
arrangement .-ould be made as to buy- 
ing out his life-interest — for which in- 
deed he has taken the money before- 
hand, with a vengeance — and then Wal- 
ter would be settled for life. Would 
not this be all for the best ? 

“ I shall go home about the 14th. 


224 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


They want me to stay, but I shall have 
been away quite long enough. I don’t 
know whether people ought to go from 
home at all after a certain age. I get 
cross because I can’t have the sort of 
chair I like to sit on ; and then they 
don’t put any green tea into the pot, 
and I don’t like to ask to have any 
made, as I doubt whether they have 
any green tea in the house. And I find 
it bad to be among invalids, with whom, 
indeed I can sympathize, but for whom 
I cannot pretend that I feel any great 
affection. As we grow old we become 
incapable of new tenderness, and rather 
resent the calls that are made upon us 
for pity. The luxury of devotion to 
misery is as much the privilege of the 
young as is that of devotion to love. 

‘■‘Write soon, dearest ; and remember 
that the best news I can have will be 
tidings as to the day fixed for your mar- 
riage. And remember, too, that I won’t 
have any question about your being 
married at Bullhampton. It would be 
quite improper. He must come to Lor- 
ing ; and I needn’t say how glad I shall 
be to see the Fenwicks. Parson John 
will expect to marry you, but Mr. Fen- 
wick might come and assist. 

“Your most affectionate aunt, 

“Sarah Markable.” 

It was not the entreaty made by her 
aunt that an early day should be fixed 
for the marriage which made Mary 
Lowther determine that she would yet 
once more attempt to drag 'the wagon. 
She could have withstood such entreaty 
as that, and, had the letter gone no far- 
ther, would probably have replied to it 
by saying that no day could be fixed at 
all. But with the letter there came an 
assurance that Walter Marrable had 
forgotten her, was about to marry Edith 
Brownlow, and that therefore all ideas 
of love and truth and sympathy and 
joint beating of mutual hearts, with the 
rest of it, might be thrown to the winds. 
She would marry Harry Gilmore, and 
take care that he had good dinners, and 
would give her mind to flannel petti- 
coats and coal for the poor of Bull- 
hampton, and would altogether come 


down from the pedestal which she had 
once striven to erect for herself. From 
that high but tottering pedestal, propped 
up on shafts of romance and poetry, she 
would come down ; but there would re- 
main for her the lower, firmer standing- 
block, of which duty was the sole sup- 
port. It was no doubt most unreason- 
able that any such change should come 
upon her in consequence of her aunt’s 
letter. She had never for a moment 
told herself that Walter Marrable could 
ever be anything to her since that day 
on which she had by her own deed lib- 
erated him from his troth ; and indeed 
had done more than that — had forced 
him to accept that liberation. Why, 
then, should his engagement with an- 
other woman have any effect with her, 
either in one direction or in the other ? 
She herself had submitted to a new en- 
gagement — had done so before he had 
shown any sign of being fickle. She 
could not therefore be angry with him. 
And yet, because he could be fickle, 
because he could do that very thing 
which she had openly declared her pur- 
pose of doing, she persuaded herself — 
for a week or two — that any sacrifice 
made to him would be a sacrifice to 
folly and a neglect of duty. 

At this time' during this week or two, 
there came to her, direct from the jew- 
elers in London, a magnificent set of 
rubies — ear-rings, brooch, bracelets and 
necklace. The rubies slie had seen be- 
fore, and knew that they had belonged to 
Mr. Gilmore’s mother. Mrs. Fenwick 
had told him that the setting was so old 
that no lady could wear them now, and 
there had been a presentiment that they 
would be forthcoming in a new form. 
Mary had said that of course such or- 
naments as these would come into her 
hands only when she became Mrs. Gil- 
more. Mrs. Fenwick had laughed, and 
told her that she did not understand the 
romantic generosity of her lover. And 
now the jewelry had come to her at the 
parsonage without a word from Gilmore, 
and was spread out in its pretty cases 
on the vicarage drawing-room table. 
Now, if ever, must she say that she 
could not do as she had promised. 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


225 


“Mary,” said Mrs. Fenwick, “you 
must go up to him to-morrow and tell 
him how noble he is.” 

Mary waited perhaps for a whole 
minute before she answered. She would 
willingly have given the jewels away 
for ever and ever, so that they might 
not have been there now to trouble her. 
But she did answer at last, knowing, as 
she did so, that her last chance was gone. 

“ He is noble,” she said, slowly, “and 
I will go and tell him so. I’ll go now, 
if it is not too late.” 

“Do, do! You’ll be sure to find him.” 
And Mrs. Fenwick, in her enthusiasm, 
embraced her friend and kissed her. 

Mary put on her hat and walked off 
at once through the garden and across 
the fields, and into the Privets ; and 
close to the house she met her lover. 
He did not see her till he heard her 
step, and then turned short round, al- 
most as though fearing something. 

“ Harry,” she said, “those jewels have 
come. Oh dear 1 they are not mine yet. 
Why did you have them sent to me ?” 

There was something in the word yet, 
or in her tone as she spoke it, which 
made his heart leap as it had never 
leaped before. 

“If they’re not yours, I don’t know 
whom they belong to,” he said; and 
his eye was bright and his voice almost 
shook with emotion. 

“Are you doing anything ?” she asked. 

“Nothing on earth.” 

“Then come and see them.” 

So they walked off, and he, at any 
rate on that occasion, was a happy 
lover. For a few minutes — perhaps for 
an hour — he did allow himself to be- 
lieve that he was destined to enjoy that 
rapture of requited affection in longing 
for which his very soul had become 
sick. As she walked back with him to 
the vicarage her hand rested heavily 
on his arm, and when she asked him 
some question about his land, she was 
able so to modulate her voice as to 
make him believe that she was learning 
to regard his interests as her own. He 
stopped her at the gate leading into the 
vicarage garden, and once more made 
to her an assurance of his regard. 


“Mary,” he said, “if love will beget 
love, I think that you must love me at 
last.” 

“I will love you,” she said, pressing 
his arm still more closely. But even 
then she could not bring herself to tell 
him that she did love him. 


CHAPTER LV. 

GLEBE LAND. 

The fifteenth of July was a Sunday, 
and it had been settled for some time 
past that on this day Mr. Puddleham 
would preach for the first time in his 
new chapel. The building had been 
hurried on through the early summer in 
order that this might be achieved ; and 
although the fittings were not com- 
pleted, and the outward signs of the 
masons and laborers had not been re- 
moved — although the heaps of mortar 
were still there, and time had not yet suf- 
ficed to have the chips cleared away — 
on Sunday, the fifteenth of July, the 
chapel was opened. Great efforts were 
made to have it filled on the occasion. 
The builder from Salisbury came over 
with all his family, not deterred by the 
consideration that whereas the Puddle- 
hamites of Bullhampton were Primitive 
Methodists, he was a regular Wesleyan. 
And many in the parish were got to 
visit the chapel on this the day of its 
glory who had less business there than 
even the builder from Salisbury. In 
most parishes there are some who think 
it well to let the parson know that they 
are independent and do not care for 
him, though they profess to be of his 
flock ; and then, too, the novelty of the 
thing had its attraction, and the well- 
known fact that the site chosen for the 
building had been as gall and worm- 
wood to the parson and his family. 
These causes together brought a crowd 
to the vicarage gate on that Sunday 
morning, and it was quite clear that the 
new chapel would be full, and that Mr. 
Puddleham’s first Sunday would be a 
success. 

And then the chapel, of course, 
had a bell — a bell which was declared 


226 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


by Mrs. Fenwick to be the hoarsest, 
loudest, most unmusical and ill-founded 
miscreant of a bell that was ever sus- 
pended over a building for the torture 
of delicate ears. It certainly was a loud 
and brazen bell, but Mr. Fenwick ex- 
pressed his opinion that there was noth- 
ing amiss with it. When his wife de- 
clared that it sounded as though it came 
from the midst of the shrubs at their 
own front gate, he reminded her that 
their own church -bells sounded as 
though they came from the lower gar- 
den. That one sound should be held by 
them to be musical and the other abom- 
inable he declared to be a prejudice. 
Then there was a great argument about 
the bells, in which Mrs. Fenwick and 
Majry Lowther and Harry Gilmore were 
all against the vicar. And throughout 
the discussion it was known to them all 
that there were no ears in the parish to 
which the bells were so really odious 
as they were to the ears of the vicar 
himself. In his heart of hearts he hated 
the chapel, and, in spite of all his en- 
deavors to the contrary, his feelings to- 
ward Mr. Puddleham were not those 
whjch the Christian religion requires 
one neighbor to bear to another. But 
he made the struggle, and for some 
weeks past had not said a word against 
Mr. Puddleham. In regard to the mar- 
quis the thing was different. The mar- 
quis should have known better, and 
against the marquis he did say a great 
many words. 

They began to ring the bell on that 
Sunday morning before ' ten o’clock. 
Mrs. Fenwick was still sitting at the 
breakfast-table, with the windows open, 
when the sound was first heard — first 
heard, that is, on that morning. She 
looked at Mary, groaned and put her 
hands to her ears. The vicar laughed 
and walked about the room. 

“At what time do they begin ?’’ said 
Mary. 

“Not till eleven,” said Mrs. Fenwick. 
“ There, it wants a quarter to ten now, 
and they mean to go on with that music 
for an hour and a quarter !” 

“We shall be keeping them company 
by and by,” said the vicar. 


“ The poor old church-bells won’t be 
heard through it,” said Mrs. Fenwick. 

Mrs. Fenwick was in the habit of 
going to the village school for half an 
hour before the service on Sunday morn- 
ings; and on this morning she started 
from the house, according to her custom, 
at a little after ten. Mary Lowther went 
with her, and as the school was in the 
village, and could be reached much 
easier by the front gate than by the 
path round by the church, the two ladies 
walked out boldly before the new chapel. 
The reader may perhaps remember that 
Mrs. Fenwick had promised her hus- 
band to withdraw that outward animos- 
ity to the chapel which she had evinced 
by not using the vicarage, entrance. As 
they went there was a crowd collected, 
and they found that, after the manner 
of the Primitive Methodists in their more 
enthusiastic days, a procession of wor- 
shipers had been formed in the village, 
which at this very moment was making 
its way to the chapel. Mrs. Fenwick, 
as she stood aside to make way for them, 
declared that the bell sounded as though 
it were within her bonnet. When they 
reached the school they found that many 
a child was absent who should have 
been there, and Mrs. Fenwick knew 
that the truant urchins were amusing 
themselves at the new building. And 
with those who were not truant the clang 
of the new bell distracted terribly that’ 
attention which was due to the collect. 
Mrs. Fenwick herself confessed after- 
ward that she hardly knew what she was 
teaching. 

Mr. Fenwick, according to his habit, 
went into his own study when the ladies 
went to the school, and there, accord- 
ing to custom also on Sunday mornings, 
his letters were brought to him some 
few minutes before he started on his 
walk through the garden to the church. 
On this morning there were a couple of 
letters for himself, and he opened them 
both. One was from a tradesman in 
Salisbury, and the other was from his 
wife’s brother-in-law, Mr. Quickenham. 
Before he started he read Mr. Quicken- 
ham’s letter, and then did his best to 
forget it and put it out of his mind till 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


227 


the morning service should be over. 
The letter was as follows : 

“ Pump Court, June 30, 1868. 
“Dear Fenwick : 

“I have found, as I thought I should, 
that Lord Trowbridge has no property 
or right whatever in the bit of ground 
on which your enemies have been build-, 
ing their new Ebenezer. The spot is a 
part of the glebe, and as such seems to 
have been first abandoned by a certain 
parson named Brandon, who was your 
predecessor’s predecessor. There can, 
however, be no doubt that the ground 
is glebe, and that you are bound to pro- 
tect it, as such, on behalf of your suc- 
cessors and of the patrons of the living. 

“ I found some difficulty in getting at 
the terrier of the parish, which you, who 
consider yourself to be a model parson, 
I dare say, have never seen. I have, 
however, found it in duplicate. The 
clerk of the Board of Guardians, who 
should, I believe, have a copy of it, 
knew nothing about it, and had never 
heard of such a document. Your bish- 
op’s registrar was not much more 
learned; but I did find it in the bish- 
op’s chancery ; and there is a copy of 
it also at Saint John’s, which seems to 
imply that great attention has been paid 
by the college as patron to the interests 
of the parish priest. This is m^re than 
has been done by the incumbent, who 
seems to be an ignorant fellow in such 
matters. I wonder how many parsons 
there are in the Church who would let a 
marquis and a Methodist minister, be-* 
tween them, build a chapel on the parish 
glebe ? 

“Yours ever, 

“ Richard Quickenham. 

“ If I were to charge you through an 
attorney for my trouble, you’d have to 
mortgage your life-interest in the bit of 
land to pay me. I enclose a draft from 
the terrier, as far as the plot of ground 
and the vicarage gate are concerned.’’ 

Here was information ! This detest- 
able combination of dissenting and 
tyrannically territorial influences had 
been used to build a Methodist chapel 
upon land of which he, during his in- 


cumbency in the parish, was the free- 
hold possessor ! What an ass he must 
have been not to know his own posses- 
sions ! How ridiculous would he ap- 
pear when he should come forward to 
claim as a part of the glebe a morsel 
of land to which he had paid no special 
attention whatever since he had been 
in the parish ! And then, what would 
it be his duty to do ? Mr. Quickenham 
had clearly stated that on behalf of the 
college, which was the patron of the 
living, and on behalf of his successors, 
it was his duty to claim the land. And 
was it possible that he should not do 
so after such usage as he had received 
from Lord Trowbridge ? So meditating, 
but grieving that he should be driven at 
such a moment to have his mind forci- 
bly filled with such matters — still hear- 
ing the chapel-bell, which in his ears 
drowned the sound from his own mod- 
est belfry, and altogether doubtful as to 
what step he would take — he entered 
his own church. It was manifest to him 
that of the poorer part of his usual audi- 
ence, and of the smaller farmers, one- 
half were in attendance upon Mr. Pud- 
dleham’s triumph. 

During the whole of that afternoon 
he said not a word of the barrister’s 
letter to any one. He struggled to ban- 
ish the subject from his thoughts. Fail- 
ing to do that, he did banish it from his 
tongue. The letter was in the pocket 
of his coat, but he showed it to no one. 
Gilmore dined at the vicarage, but even 
to him he was silent. Of course the 
conversation at dinner turned upon the 
chapel. It was impossible that on such 
a day they should speak of anything 
else. Even as they sat at their early 
dinner Mr. Puddleham’s bell was ring- 
ing, and no doubt there was a vigor in 
the pulling of it which would not be 
maintained when the pulling of it should 
have become a thing of every week. 
There had been a compact made, in 
accordance with which the vicar’s wife 
was to be debarred from saying any- 
thing against the chapel, and no doubt 
when the compact was made the under- 
standing was that she should give over 
hating the chapel. This had, of course, 


228 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


been found to be impossible, but in a 
certain way she had complied with the 
compact. The noise of the bell, how- 
ever, was considered to be beyond the 
compact, and on this occasion she was 
almost violent in the expression of her 
wrath. Her husband listened to her, 
and sat without rebuking her, silent, 
with the lawyer’s letter in his pocket. 
This bell had been put up on his own 
land, and he could pull it down to-mor- 
row. It had been put up by the express 
agency of Lord Trowbridge, and with 
the direct view of annoying him ; and 
Lord Trowbridge had behaved to him 
in a manner which set all Christian 
charity at defiance. He told himself 
plainly that he had no desire to forgive 
Lord Trowbridge — that life in this 
world, as it is constituted, would not be 
compatible with such forgiveness — ^that 
he would not, indeed, desire to injure 
Lord Trowbridge otherwise than by 
exacting such penalty as would force 
him and such as he to restrain their 
tyranny ; but that to forgive him till he 
should have been so forced would be 
weak and injurious to the community. 
As to that, he had quite made up his 
mind, in spite of all doctrine to the con- 
trary. Men in this world would have 
to go naked if they gave their coats to 
the robbers who took their cloaks ; and 
going naked is manifestly inexpedient. 
His office of parish priest would be low- 
ered in the world if he forgave, out of 
hand, such offences as these which had 
been committed against him by Lord 
Trowbridge. This he understood clearly. 
And now he might put down not only 
the bell, but with the bell the ill-con- 
difioned peer who had caused it to be 
put up on glebe land. All this went 
through his mind again and again as 
he determined that on that day, being 
Sunday, he would think no more about it. 

When the Monday came it was neces- 
sary that he should show the letter to his 
wife — to his wife, and to the squire, and 
to Mary Lowther. He had no idea of 
keeping the matter secret from his near 
friends and advisers ; but he had an 
idea that it would be well that he should 
make up his mind as to what he would 


do before he asked their advice. He 
started, therefore, for a turn through 
the parish before breakfast on Monday 
morning, and resolved as to his course 
of action. On no consideration what- 
ever would he have the chapel pulled 
down. It was necessary for his pur- 
pose that he should have his triumph 
'over the marquis, and he would have 
it. But the chapel had been built for a 
good purpose, which it would adequate- 
ly serve, and, let what might be said to 
him by his wife or others, he would not 
have a brick of it disturbed. No doubt 
he had no more power to give the land 
for its present or any other purpose 
than had the marquis. It might very 
probably be his duty to take care that 
the land was not appropriated to wrong 
purposes. It might be that he had al- 
ready neglected his duty in not know- 
ing, or in not having taken care to 
learn, the precise limits of the glebe 
which had been given over to him for 
his use during his incumbency. Never- 
theless, there was the chapel, and there 
it should stand, as far as he was con- 
cerned. If the churchwardens, or the 
archdeacon, or the college, or the bish- 
op had power to interfere — as to which 
he was altogether ignorant — and chose 
to exercise that power, he could not 
help it. He was nearly sure that his 
own churchwardens would be guided 
altogether by himself, and as far as he 
was concerned the chapel should re- 
main unmolested. Having thus re- 
solved, he came back to breakfast and 
read Mr. Quickenham’s letter aloud to 
his wife and Mary Lowther. 

“Glebe !’’ said the vicar’s wife. ‘ 

“Do you mean that it is part of your 
own land ?’’ asked Mary. 

“Exactly that,’’ said the vicar. 

“And that old thief of a marquis has 
given away what belongs to us ?’’ said 
Mrs. Fenwick. 

“ He has given away what did not be- 
long to himself,’’ said the vicar. “But 
I can’t admit that he’s a thief.’’ 

“Surely, he ought to have known,’’ 
said Mary. 

“As for that, so ought I to have 
known, I suppose. The whole thing is 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


229 


one of the most ridiculous mistakes that 
ever was made. It has absolutely come 
to pass that here, in the middle of Wilt- 
shire, with all our maps and surveys 
and parish records, no one concerned 
has known to whom belonged a quarter 
of an acre of land in the centre of the 
village. It is just a thing to write an 
article about in a newspaper; but I 
can’t say that one party is more to 
blame than the other — that is, in regard 
to the ignorance displayed.” 

“And what will you do, Frank?” 

“Nothing.” 

“You will do nothing, Frank?” 

“ I will do nothing ; but I will take 
care to let the marquis know the nature 
of his generosity. I fancy that I am 
bound to take on myself that labor, and 
I must say that it won’t trouble me 
much to have to write the letter.” 

“You won’t pull it down, Frank ?” 

“No, my dear.” 

“ I would, before a week was over.” 

“So would I,” said Mary. “I don’t 
think it ought to be there.” 

“Of course it ought not to be there,” 
said Mrs. Fenwick. 

“ They might as well have it here in 
the garden,” said Mary. 

“Just the same,”. said Mrs. Fenwick. 

“ It is not in the garden ; and as it 
has been built it shall remain, as far as 
I am concerned. I shall rather like it, 
now that I know I am the landlord. I 
think I shall claim a sitting.” This was 
the vicar’s decision on the Monday 
morning, and from that decision the 
two ladies were quite unable to move 
him. 

This occurred a day or two after the 
affair of the rubies, and at a time when 
Mary was being'’ very hard pressed to 
name a day for her wedding. Of course 
such pressure had been the result of 
Mr. Gilmore’s success on that occasion. 
She had then resolutely gone to work to 
overcome her own and his melancholy 
gloom ; and having in a great degree 
succeeded, it was only natural that he 
should bring up that question of his mar- 
riage day. She, when she had accept- 
ed him, had done so with a stipulation 
that she should not be hurried ; but we 


all know what such stipulations are 
worth. Who is to define what is and 
what is not hurry ? They had now been 
engaged a month, and the squire was 
clearly of opinion that there had been 
no hurry. “ September was the nicest 
month in the year,” he said, “ for getting 
married and going abroad. September 
in Switzerland, October among the Ital- 
ian lakes, November in Florence and 
Rome, so that they might get home be- 
fore Christmas, after a short visit to 
Naples.” That was the squire’s pro- 
gramme, and his whole manner was 
altered as he made it. He thought he 
knew the nature of the girl well enough 
to be sure that, though she would pro- 
fess no passionate love for him before 
starting on such a journey, she would 
change her tone before she returned. 
It should be no fault of his if she did not 
change it. Mary had at first declined 
to fix any day — had talked of next year, 
had declared that she would not be 
hurried. She had carried on the fight 
even after the affair of the rubies, but 
she had fought in opposition to strong 
and well-disciplined forces on the other 
side, and she had begun to admit to 
herself that it might be expedient that 
she should yield. The thing was to 
be done, and why not have it done at 
once ? She had not as yet yielded, but 
she had begun to think that she would 
yield. 

At such a period it was of course nat- 
ural that the squire should be daily at 
the vicarage, and on this Monday morn- 
ing he came down while the minds of 
all his friends there were intent on the 
strange information received from Mr. 
Quickenham. The vicar was not by 
when Mr. Gilmore was told, and he was 
thus easily induced to join in the opin- 
ion that the chapel should be made to 
disappear. He had a landlord’s idea 
about land, and was thoroughly well 
disposed to stop any encroachment on 
the part of the marquis. 

“ Lord Trowbridge must pull it down 
himself and put it up again elsewhere,” 
said the squire. 

“But Frank says that he won’t let the 
marquis pull it down,” said Mrs. Fen- 


230 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


wick, almost moved to tears by the trag- 
edy of the occasion. 

Then the vicar joined them, and the 
matter was earnestly debated — so ear- 
nestly that on that occasion not a word 
was said as to the day of the wedding. 


CHAPTER LVI. 

THE vicar’s vengeance. 

No eloquence on the part of the two 
ladies at the vicarage, or of the squire, 
could turn Mr. Fenwick from his pur- 
pose, but he did consent at last to go 
over with the squire to Salisbury, and 
to consult Mr. Chamberlaine. A prop- 
osition was made to him as to consult- 
ing the bishop, for whom personally he 
always expressed a liking, and whose 
office he declared that he held in the 
highest veneration; but he explained 
that this was not a matter in which the 
bishop should be invited to exercise 
authority. 

“ The bishop has nothing to do with 
my freehold,” he said. 

‘‘But if you want an opinion,” said 
the squire, ‘‘why not go to a man whose 
opinion will be worth having?” 

Then the vicar explained again. His 
lespect for the bishop was so great that 
any opinion coming from his lordship 
would, to him, be more than advice — 
it would be law, so great was his min- 
gled admiration of the man and respect 
for the office. 

‘‘What he means,” said Mrs. Fenwick, 
‘‘is, that he won’t go to the bishop be- 
cause he has made up his mind already. 
You are, both of you, throwing away 
your time and money in going to Salis- 
bury at all.” 

‘‘Fm not sure but what she’s right 
there,” said the vicar. Nevertheless, 
they went to Salisbury. 

The Rev. Henry Fitzackerly Cham- 
berlaine was very eloquent, clear and 
argumentative on the subject, and per- 
haps a little overbearing. He insisted 
that the chapel should be removed 
without a moment’s delay, and that no- 
tice as to its removal should be served 
upon all the persons concerned — upon 


Mr. Puddleham, upon the builder, upon 
the chapel trustees, the elders of the 
congregation — ^“if there be any elders,” 
said Mr. Chamberlaine, with a delight- 
ful touch of irony — and upon the mar- 
quis and the marquis’ agent. He was 
eloquent, authoritative and loud. When 
the vicar remarked that, after all, the 
chapel had been built for a good pur- 
pose, Mr. Chamberlaine became quite 
excited in his eloquence. 

‘‘The glebe of Bullhampton, Mr. Fen- 
wick,” said he, ‘‘has not been confided 
to your care for the propagation of dis- 
sent.” 

‘‘Nor has the vicarage-house been 
confided to me for the reading of nov- 
els, but that is what goes on there.” 

‘‘The house is for your private com- 
fort,” said the prebendary. 

‘‘ And so is the glebe,” said the vicar; 
‘‘and I shall not be comfortable if I 
make these people pull down a house 
of prayer.” 

And there was another argument 
against the vicar’s views — very strong. 
This glebe was only given to him in 
trust. He was bound so to use it that it 
should fall into the hands of his suc- 
cessor unimpaired and with full capa- 
bility for fruition. ‘‘You have no right 
to leave to another the demolition of a 
building the erection of which you 
should have prevented.” This argu- 
ment was more difficult of answer than 
the other, but Mr. Fenwick did answer 
it. 

‘‘I feel all that,” said he; ‘‘and I think 
it likely that my estate may be liable for 
the expense of removal. The chapel 
may be brought in as a dilapidation. 
But that which I can answer with my 
purse need not lie upon my conscience. 
I could let the bit of land, I have no 
doubt — though not on a building lease.” 

‘‘But they have built oh it,” said Mr. 
Chamberlaine. 

‘‘ No doubt, they have ; and I can see 
that my estate may be called upon to 
restore the bit of ground to its former 
position. What I can’t see is, that I 
am bound to enforce the removal now.” 

Mr. Chamberlaine took up the matter 
with great spirit, and gave a couple of 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


231 


hours to the discussion, but the vicar 
was not shaken. 

The vicar was not shaken, but his 
manner as he went out from the preb- 
endary’s presence left some doubt as 
to his firmness in the mind both of that 
dignitary and of the squire. He thanked 
Mr. Chamberlaine very courteously, and 
acknowledged that there was a great 
deal in the arguments which had been 
used. 

“ I am sure you will find it best to 
clear your ground of the nuisance at 
once,” said Mr. Chamberlaine, with 
that high tone which he knew so well 
how to assume; and these were the 
last words spoken. 

“Well?” said the squire, as soon as 
they were out in the close, asking his 
friend as to his decision. 

‘‘It’s a very knotty point,” said Fen- 
wick. 

‘‘ I don’t much like my uncle’s tone,” 
said the squire — ‘‘I never do — but I 
think he is right.” 

‘‘ I won’t say but what he may be.” 

‘‘It’ll have to come down, Frank,” 
said the squire. 

‘‘No doubt — some day. But I am 
quite sure as to this, Harry — that when 
you have a doubt as to your duty, you 
can’t be wrong in delaying that the do- 
ing of which would gratify your own 
ill-will. Don’t you go and tell this to 
the women ; but to my eyes that con- 
venticle at Bullhampton is the most 
hideous, abominable and disagreeable 
object that ever was placed upon the 
earth.” 

‘‘So it is to mine,” said the squire. 

‘‘And therefore I won’t touch a brick 
of it. It shall be my hair shirt, my fast- 
day, my sacrifice of a broken heart, my 
little pet good work. It will enable me to 
take all the good things of the world that 
come in my way, and flatter myself that 
I am not self-indulgent. There is not 
a dissenter in Bullhampton will get so 
much out of the chapel as I will.” 

‘‘ I fancy they can make you have it 
pulled down.” 

‘‘ Then their making me shall be my 
hair shirt, and I shall be fitted just as 
well.” Upon that they went back to 


Bullhampton, and the squire told the 
two ladies what had passed — as to the 
hair shirt and all. 

Mr. Fenwick in making for himself 
his hair shirt did not think it necessary 
to abstain from writing to the Marquis 
of Trowbridge. This he did on that 
same day after his return from Salis- 
bury. In the middle of the winter he 
had written a letter to the marquis, re- 
monstrating against the building of the 
chapel opposite to his own gate. He 
now took out his copy of that letter, and 
the answer to it, in which the agent of 
the marquis had told him that the mar- 
quis considered that the spot in ques- 
tion was the most eligible site which his 
lordship could bestow for the purpose 
in question. Our vicar was very anx- 
ious not to disturb the chapel now that 
it was built, but he was quite as anxious 
to disturb the marquis. In the forma- 
tion of that hair shirt which he was 
minded to wear he did not intend to 
weave in any mercy toward the mar- 
quis. It behooved him to punish the 
marquis for the good of society in gen- 
eral. As a trespasser he forgave the 
marquis in a Christian point of view ; 
but as a pestilent wasp on the earth, 
stinging folks right and left with an ar- 
rogance the ignorance of which was the 
only excuse to be made for his cruelty, 
he thought it to be his duty to set his 
heel upon the marquis ; which he did 
by writing the following letter : 

“Bullhampton Vicarage, July 18, 1868. 
‘‘ My Lord Marquis : 

‘‘ On the 3d of January last I ventured 
to write to your lordship with the object 
of saving myself and my family from a 
great annoyance, and of saving you also 
from the disgrace of subjecting me to it. 
I then submitted to you the expediency 
of giving in the parish some other site 
for the erection of a dissenting chapel 
than the small patch of ground imme- 
diately opposite to the vicarage gate, 
which, as I explained to you, I had al- 
ways regarded as belonging to the vicar- 
age. I did not for a moment question 
your lordship’s right to give the land in 
question, but appealed simply to your 


232 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


good feeling. I confess that I took it 
for granted that even your lordship, 
in so very high-handed a proceeding, 
would take care to have right on your 
side. In answer to this I received a 
letter from your man of business, of 
which, as coming from him, I do not 
complain, but which, as a reply to my 
letter to your lordship, was an insult. 
The chapel has been built, and on last 
Sunday was opened for worship. 

“ I have now learned that the land 
which you have given away did not be- 
long to your lordship, and never formed 
a portion of the Stowte estate in this 
parish. It was, and is, glebe land, and 
formed, at the time of your bestowal, a 
portion of my freehold as vicar. I ac- 
knowledge that I was remiss in pre- 
suming that you as a landlord knew the 
limits of your own rights, and that you 
would not trespass beyond them. I 
should have made my inquiry more 
urgently. I have made it now, and 
your lordship may satisfy yourself by re- 
ferring to the maps of the parish lands, 
which are to be found in the bishop’s 
chancery, and also at St. John’s, Oxford, 
if you cannot do so by any survey of 
the estate in your possession. I en- 
close a sketch showing the exact limits 
of the glebe in respect to the vicarage 
entrance and the patch of ground in 
question. The fact is, that the chapel 
in question has been built on the glebe 
land by authority illegally and unjustly 
given by youy lordship. 

“ The chapel is there ; and though it 
is a pity that it should have been built, 
it would be a greater pity that it should 
be pulled down. It is my purpose to 
offer to the persons concerned a lease 
of the ground for the term of my incum- 
bency at a nominal rent. I presume 
that a lease maybe so framed as to pro- 
tect the rights of my successor. 

“ I will not conclude this letter with- 
out expressing my opinion that gross as 
has been your lordship’s ignorance in 
giving away land which did not belong 
to you, your fault in that respect has 
been very trifling in comparison with 
the malice you have shown to a clergy- 
man of your own Church, settled in a 


parish partly belonging to yourself, in 
having caused the erection of this chapel 
on the special spot selected with no other 
object than that of destroying my per- 
sonal comfort and that of my wife. 

“I have the honor to be your lord- 
ship’s most obedient servant, 

“Francis Fenwick.’’ 

When he had finished his epistle he 
read it over more than once, and was 
satisfied that it would be vexatious to 
the marquis. It was his direct object 
to vex the marquis, and he had set 
about it with all his vigor. “I would 
skin him if I knew how,’’ he had said 
to Gilmore. “He has done that to me 
which no man should forgive. He has 
spoken ill of me and calumniated me, 
not because he has thought ill of me, 
but because he has had a spite against 
me. They may keep their chapel, as 
far as I am concerned. But as for his 
lordship, I should think ill of myself if 
I spared him.’’ He had his lordship 
on the hip, and he did not spare him. 
He showed the letter to his wife. 

“Isn’t malice a very strong word?” 
she said. 

“ I hope so,” answered the vicar. 

“ What I mean is, might you not soften 
it without hurting your cause ?” 

“I think not. I conscientiously be- 
lieve the accusation to be true. I en- 
deavor so to live among my neighbors 
that I may not disgrace them or you oi 
myself. This man has dared to accuse 
me openly of the grossest immorality 
and hypocrisy, wl;en I am only doing 
my duty as I best know how to do it ; 
and I do now believe in my heart that in 
making these charges he did not him- 
self credit them. At any rate, no man 
can be justified in making such charges 
without evidence.” 

“But all that had nothing to do with 
the bit of ground, Frank.” 

“ It is part and parcel of the same 
thing. He has chosen to treat me as 
an enemy, and has used all the influ- 
ence of his wealth and rank to injure 
me. Now he must look to himself. I 
will not say a word of him or to him 
that is untrue ; but as he has said evil 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


233 


of me behind my back which he did 
not believe, so will I say the evil of him 
which I do believe to his face.” The 
letter was sent, and before the day was 
over the vicar had recovered his good- 
humor. 

And before the day was over the news 
was all through the parish. There was 
a certain ancient shoemaker in the vil- 
lage who had carried on business in 
Devizes, and had now retired to spend 
the evening of his life in his native 
place. Mr. Bolt was a qutet, inoffensive 
old man, but he was a dissenter, and 
was one of the elders and trustees who 
had been concerned in raising money 
for the chapel. To him the vicar had 
told the whole story, declaring at the 
same time that, as far as he was con- 
cerned, Mr. Puddleham and his con- 
gregation should, at any rate for the 
present, be made welcome to their 
chapel. This he had done immediately 
on his return from Salisbury, and before 
the letter to the marquis was written. 
Mr. Bolt, not unnaturally, saw his min- 
ister the same evening, and the thing 
was discussed in full conclave by the 
Puddlehamites. At the end of that dis- 
cussion, Mr. Puddleham expressed his 
conviction that the story was a mare’s 
nest from beginning to end. He didn’t 
believe a word of it. The marquis was 
not the man to give away anything that 
did not belong to him. Somebody had 
hoaxed the vicar, or the vicar had 
hoaxed Mr. Bolt; or else — which Mr. 
Puddleham thought to be most likely — 
the vicar had gone mad with vexation 
at the glory and the triumph of the new 
chapel. 

* ‘‘ He was uncommon civil,” said Mr. 
Bolt, who at this moment was somewhat 
inclined to favor the vicar. 

“No doubt, Mr. Bolt — no doubt,” said 
Mr. Puddleham, who had quite recov- 
ered from his first dismay, and had 
worked himself up to a state of elo- 
quent enthusiasm. “ I dare say he was 
civil. Why not? In old days, when 
we hardly dared to talk of having a 
decent house of prayer of our own in 
which to worship our God, he was al- 
ways civil. No one has ever heard me 


accuse Mr. Fenwick of incivility. But 
will any one tell me that he is a friend 
to our mode of worship ? Gentlemen, 
we must look to ourselves, and I for 
one tell you that that chapel is ours. 
You won’t find that his ban will keep 
me cut of my pulpit. Glebe, indeed ! 
why should the vicar have glebe on the 
other side of the road from his house ? 
Or, for the matter of that, why should 
he have glebe at all?” This was so 
decisive that no one at the meeting had 
a word to say after Mr. Puddleham had 
finished his speech. 

When the marquis received his letter 
he was up in London. Lord Trowbridge 
was not much given to London life, but 
was usually compelled by circumstances 
— the circumstances being the custom 
of society, as pleaded by his two daugh- 
ters — to spend the months of May, June 
and July at the family mansion in Gros- 
venor Square. Moreover, though the 
marquis never opened his mouth in the 
House of Lords, it was, as he thought, 
imperative on him to give to the leader 
of his party the occasional support of 
his personal presence. Our vicar, know- 
ing this, had addressed his letter to Gros- 
venor Square, and it had thus reached 
its destination without material loss of 
time. 

Lord Trowbridge by this time knew 
the handwriting of his enemy ; and, as 
he broke the envelope, there came upon 
him an idea that it might be wise to 
refuse the letter and to let it go back to 
its writer unopened. It was beneath 
his dignity to correspond with a man or 
to receive letters from a man who would 
probably insult him. But before he 
could make up his mind the envelope 
had been opened and the letter had 
been read. His wrath, when he had 
read it, no writer of a simple prose 
narration should attempt to describe. 
“Disgrace*,” “insult,” “ignorance” and 
“malice” — these were the words with 
which the marquis found himself 
pelted by this pestilent, abominable 
and most improper clergyman. As to 
the gist of the letter itself, it was some 
time before he understood it. And 
when he did begin to understand it, he 


234 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


did not as yet begin to believe it. His 
intelligence worked slowly, whereas his 
wrath worked quickly. But at last he 
began to ask himself whether the accu- 
sation made against him could possibly 
be based on truth. When the question 
of giving the land had been under con- 
sideration, it had never occurred to any 
one concerned that it could belong to 
the glebe. There had been some mo- 
mentary suspicion that the spot might 
possibly have been so long used as 
common land as to give room for a 
question on that side, but no one had 
dreamed that any other claimant could 
arise. That the whole village of Bull- 
hampton belonged to the marquis was 
notorious. Of course there was the 
glebe. But who could think that the 
morsel of neglected land lying on the 
other side of the road belonged to the 
vicarage ? The marquis did not be- 
lieve it now. This was some piece of 
wickedness concocted by the venomous 
brain of the iniquitous vicar, more abom- 
inable than all his other wickednesses. 
The marquis did not believe it, but he 
walked up and down his room all the 
morning thinking of it. The marquis 


was sure that it was not true, and yet 
he could not for a moment get the idea 
out of his mind. Of course he must tell 
St. George. The language of the letter 
which had been sent to him was so 
wicked that St. George must at least 
agree with him now in his anger against 
this man. And could nothing be done 
to punish the man ? Prosecutions in 
regard to anonymous letters, threat- 
ening letters, begging letters, passed 
through his mind. He knew that pun- 
ishment had been inflicted on the writers 
of insolent letters to royalty. And let- 
ters had been proved to be criminal as 
being libelous, only then they must be 
published ; and letters were sometimes 
held to form a conspiracy, but he could 
not quite see his way to that. He knew 
that he was not royal, and he knew 
that the vicar neither threatened him 
nor begged aught from him. What if 
St. George should tell him again that 
this vicar had right on his side ? He 
cast the matter about in his mind all 
the day ; and then, late in the afternoon, 
he got into his carriage and had him- 
self driven to the chambers of Messrs. 
Boothby, the family lawyers. 




PART IX. 


CHAPTER LVII. 

OIL IS TO BE THROWN UPON THE WATERS. 

ESSRS. BOOTHBY in Lincoln’s 
Inn had for very many years 
been the lawyers of the Stowte family, 
and probably knew as much about the 
property as any of the Stowtes them- 
selves. They had not been consulted 
about the giving away of the bit of land 
for the chapel purposes, nor had they 
been instructed to draw up any deed of 
gift. The whole thing had been done 
irregularly. The land had been only 
promised, and not in truth as yet given, 
and the Puddlehamites, in their hurry, 
had gone to work and had built upon 
a promise. The marquis, when, after 
the receipt of Mr. Fenwick’s letter, his 
first rage was over, went at once to the 
chambers of Messrs. Boothby, and was 
forced to explain all the circumstances 
of the case to the senior partner before 
he could show the clergyman’s wicked 
epistle. Old Mr. Boothby was a man 
of the same age as the marquis, and, in 
his way, quite as great. Only the law- 
yer was a clever old man, whereas the 
marquis was a stupid old man. Mr. 
Boothby sat bowing his head as the 
marquis told his story. The story was 


rather confused, and for a while Mr. 
Boothby could only understand that a 
dissenting chapel had been built upon 
his client’s land. 

“We shall have to set it right by 
some scrap of a conveyance,’’ said the 
lawyer. 

“ But the vicar of the parish claims 
it,’’ said the marquis. 

“ Claims the chapel, my lord !’’ 

“ He is a most pestilent, abominable 
man, Mr. Boothby. I have brought his 
letter here.” Mr. Boothby held out his 
hand to receive the letter. From almost 
any client he would prefer a document 
to an oral explanation, but he would do 
so especially from his lordship. “ But 
you must understand,” continued the 
marquis, “that he is quite unlike any 
ordinary clergyman. I have the great- 
est respect for the Church, and am al- 
ways happy to see clergymen at my 
own house. But this is a litigious, quar- 
relsome fellow. They tell me he’s an 
infidel, and he keeps — Altogether, Mr. 
Boothby, nothing can be worse.” 

“ Indeed !” said the lawyer, still hold- 
ing out his hand for the letter. 

“He has taken the trouble to insult 
me continually. You heard how a ten- 
ant of mine was murdered ? He was 

235 




236 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


murdered by a young man whom this 
clergyman screens, because — because 
— he is the brother of — of — of the young 
woman.” 

‘‘That would be very bad, my lord.” 

‘‘ It is very bad. He knows all about 
the murder : I am convinced he does. 
He went bail for the young man. He 
used to associate with him on most in- 
timate terms. . As to the sister, there’s 
no doubt about that. They live on the 
land of a person who owns a small 
estate in the parish.” 

‘‘Mr. Gilmore, my lord ?” 

‘‘Exactly so. This Mr. Fenwick has 
got Mr. Gilmore in his pocket. You 
can have no idea of such a state of 
things as this. And now he writes me 
this letter ! I know his handwriting 
now, and any further communication I 
shall return.” The marquis ceased to 
speak, and the lawyer at once buried 
himself in the letter. 

‘‘ It is meant to be offensive,” said the 
lawyer. 

‘‘ Most insolent, most offensive, most 
improper ! And yet the bishop upholds 
him !” 

‘‘ But if he is right about the bit of 
land, my lord, it will be rather awk- 
ward.” And as he spoke the lawyer 
examined the sketch of the vicarage en- 
trance. ‘‘ He gives this as copied from 
the terrier of the parish, my lord.” 

‘‘I don’t believe a word of it,” said 
the marquis. 

‘‘You didn’t look at the plan of the 
estate, my lord ?” 

‘‘ I don’t think we did, but Packer had 
no doubt. No one knows the property 
in Bullhampton so well as Packer, and 
Packer said — ” 

But while the marquis was still speak- 
ing the lawyer rose, and, begging his 
client’s pardon, went to the clerk in the 
outer room. Nor did he return till the 
clerk had descended to an iron cham- 
ber in the basement and returned from 
thence with a certain large tin box. 
Into this a search was made, and pres- 
ently Mr. Boothby came back with a 
weighty lump of dusty vellum docu- 
ments and a manuscript map or sketch 
of a survey of the Bullhampton estate. 


which he had had opened. While the 
search was being made he had retired 
to another room, and had had a little 
conversation with his partner about the 
weather. ‘‘ I am afraid the parson is 
right, my lord,” said Mr. Boothby as 
he closed the door. 

‘‘ Right !” 

‘‘Right in his facts, my lord. It is 
glebe, and is marked so here very 
plainly. There should have been a 
reference to us — there should indeed, 
my lord. Packer and men like him 
really know nothing. The truth is, in 
such matters nobody knows anything. 
You should always have documentary 
evidence.” 

‘‘And it is glebe ?” 

‘‘Not a doubt of it, my lord.” 

Then the marquis knew that his en- 
emy had him on the hip, and he laid 
his old head down upon his folded 
arms and wept. In his weeping it is 
probable that no tears rolled down his 
cheeks, but he wept inward tears — tears 
of hatred, remorse and self-commisera- 
tion. His enemy had struck him with 
scourges, and, as far as he could see at 
present, he could not return a blow. 
And he must submit himself — must 
restore the bit of land and build those 
nasty dissenters a chapel elsewhere on 
his own property. He had not a doubt 
as to that for a moment. Could he 
have escaped the shame of it, as far a's 
the expense was concerned he would 
have been willing to build them ten 
chapels. And in doing this he would 
give a triumph, an unalloyed triumph, 
to a man whom he believed to be tho- 
, roughly bad. The vicar had accused 
the marquis of spreading reports which 
he, the marquis, did not himself be- 
lieve ; but the marquis believed them 
all. At this moment there was no evil 
that he could not have believed of Mr. 
Fenwick. While sitting there an idea, 
almost amounting to a conviction, had 
come upon him, that Mr. Fenwick had 
himself been privy to the murder of old 
Trumbull. What would not a parson 
do who would take delight in 'insulting 
and humiliating the nobleman who 
owned the parish in which he lived? 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


237 


To Lord Trowbridge the very fact that 
the parson of the parish which he re- 
garded as his own was opposed to him 
proved sufficiently what that parson 
was — scum, dregs, riff-raff, a low rad- 
ical, and everything that a parson ought 
not to be. The vicar had been wrong 
there : the marquis did believe it all 
religiously. 

“What must I do ?” said the marquis. 

“As to the chapel , itself, my lord, the 
vicar, bad as he is, does not want to 
move it.” 

“ It must come down,” said the mar- 
quis, getting up from his chair. “ It 
shall come down. Do you think that I 
would allow it to stand when it has 
been erected on his ground through my 
error? Not for a day! — not for an 
hour ! I’ll tell you what, Mr. Boothby : 
that man has known it all through — has 
known it as well as you do now ; but he 
has waited till the building was com- 
plete before he would tell me. I see 
it all as plain as the nose on 'your face, 
Mr. Boothby.” 

The lawyer was meditating how best 
he might explain to his angry client 
that he had no power whatsoever to 
pull down the building — that if the 
vicar and the dissenting minister chose 
to agree about it, the new building must 
stand in spite of the marquis — must 
stand, unless the churchwardens, patron 
or ecclesiastical authorities generally 
should force the vicar to have it re- 
moved — when a clerk came in and 
whispered a word to the attorney. “ My 
lord,” said Mr. Boothby, “Lord St. 
George is here. Shall he come in ?” 

The marquis did not wish to see his 
son exactly at this minute, but Lord St. 
George was, of course, admitted. This 
meeting at the lawyer’s chambers was 
altogether fortuitous, and father and 
son were equally surprised. But so 
great was the anger and dismay and 
general perturbation of the marquis at 
the time that he could not stop to ask 
any question. St. George must, of 
course, know what had happened, and 
it was quite as well that he should be 
told at once. 

“That bit of ground they’ve built the 


chapel on at Bullhampton turns out to 
be — glebe,” said the marquis. Lord 
St. George whistled. “Of course, Mr. 
Fenwick knew it all along,” said the 
marquis. 

“ I should hardly think that,” said his 
son. 

“You read his. letter. Mr. Boothby, 
will you be so good as to show Lord 
St. George the letter ? You never read 
such a production. Impudent scoun- 
drel ! Of course he knew it all the time.” 

Lord St. George read the letter. “ He 
is very impudent, whether he be a 
scoundrel or not.” 

“ Impudent is no word for it.” 

“Perhaps he has had some provoca- 
tion, my lord.” 

“Not from me, St. George — not from 
me. I have done nothing to him. Of 
course the chapel must be — removed.” 

“ Don’t you think the question might 
stand over for a while ?” suggested 
Mr. Boothby. “ Matters would become 
smoother in a month or two.” 

“ Not for an hour,” said the marquis. 

Lord St. George walked about the 
room with the letter in his hand, medi- 
tating. “ The truth is,” he said, at last, 
“ we have made a mistake, and we must 
get out of it as best we can. I think 
my father is a little wrong about this 
clergyman’s character.” 

“ St. George ! Have you read his let- 
ter ? Is that a proper letter to come 
from a clergyman of the Church of Eng- 
land to — to — to — ” the marquis longed 
to say. To the Marquis of Trowbridge ; 
but he did not dare to so express him- 
self before his son — ^“to the landlord of 
his parish ?” 

“A red-brick chapel just close to your 
lodge isn’t nice, you know.” 

“He has got no lodge,” said the 
marquis. 

“And so we thought we’d build him 
one. Let me manage this. I’ll see 
him and I’ll see the minister, and I’ll 
endeavor to throw some oil upon the 
waters.” 

“ I don’t want to throw oil upon the 
waters.” 

“ Lord St. George is in the right, my 
lord,” said the attorney: “he really is. 


238 


THE VidAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


It is a case in which we must throw a 
little oil upon the waters. We’ve made 
a mistake, and when we’ve done that 
we should always throw oil upon the 
waters. I’ve no doubt Lord St. George 
will find a way out of it.” 

Then the father and the son went 
away together, and before they had 
reached the Houses of Parliament, Lord 
St. George had persuaded his father to 
place the matter of the Bullhampton 
chapel in his hands. ‘‘And as for the 
letter,” said St. George, ‘‘do not you 
notice it.” 

‘‘ I have not the slightest intention of 
noticing it,” said the marquis, haughtily. 


CHAPTER LVIII. 

EDITH BROWNLOW’S DREAM. 

‘‘ MV dear, sit down : I want to speak 
to you. Do you know I should like to 
see you — married.” This speech was 
made at Dunripple to Edith Brownlow 
by her uncle, Sir Gregory, one morning 
in July, as she was attending him with 
his breakfast. His breakfast consisted 
always of a cup of chocolate, made after 
a peculiar fashion, and Edith was in 
the habit of standing by the old man’s 
bedside while he took it. She would 
never rit down, because she knew that 
were she to do so she would be pretty 
nearly hidden out of sight in the old 
arm-chair that stood at the bed-head ; 
but now she was specially invited to do 
so, and that in a manner which almost 
made her think that it would be well 
that she should hide herself for a space. 
But she did not sit down. There was 
the empty cup to be taken from Sir 
Gregory’s hands, and, after the first 
moment of surprise, Edith was not quite 
sure that it would be good that she 
should hide herself. She took the cup 
and put it on the table, and then re- 
turned, without making any reply. ‘‘I 
should like very much to see you mar- 
ried, my dear,” said Sir Gregory in the 
mildest of voices. 

‘‘Do you want to get rid of me, 
uncle ?” 

‘‘No, my dear, that is just what I 


don’t want. Of course you’ll marry 
somebody.” 

‘‘I don’t see any of course. Uncle 
Gregory.” 

‘‘But why shouldn’t you ? I suppose 
you have thought about it.” 

‘‘ Only in a general way, Uncle Gre- 
gory.” 

Sir Gregory Marrable was not a wise 
man. His folly was of an order very 
different from that of Lord Trowbridge 
— very much less likely to do harm to 
himself or others, much more innocent, 
and, folly though it was, a great deal 
more compatible with certain intellectual 
gifts. Lord Trowbridge, not to put too 
fine a point upon it, was a fool all round. 
He was much too great a fool to have 
an idea of his own folly. Now, Sir 
Gregory distrusted himself in every- 
thing, conceived himself to be a poor 
creature, would submit himself to a 
child on any question of literature, and 
had no opinion of his own on any mat- 
ter outside of his own property ; and 
even as to that his opinion was no more 
than lukewarm. Yet he read a great 
(' al, had much information stored away 
somewhere in his memory, and had 
learned, at any rate, to know how small 
a fly he was himself on the wheel of the 
world. But, alas ! when he did meddle 
with anything, he was apt to make a 
mess of it. There had been some con- 
versation between him and his sister-in- 
law, Edith’s mother, about Walter Mar- 
rable — some also between him and his 
son, and between him and Miss Mar- 
rable, his cousin. But as yet no one 
had spoken to Edith, and as Captain 
Marrable himself had not spoken, it 
would have been as well, perhaps, if 
Sir Gregory had held his tongue. After 
Edith’s last answer the old man was 
silent for a while, and then he returned 
to the subject with a downright question : 

‘‘How did you like Walter when he 
was here ?” 

‘‘ Captain Marrable ?” 

‘‘Yes, Captain Marrable.” 

‘‘ I liked him well enough — in a way. 
Uncle Gregory.” 

‘‘ Nothing would please me so much, 
Edith, as that you should become his 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


239 


wife. You know that Dunripple will 
belong to him some day.” 

“ If Gregory does not marry.” Edith 
had hardly known whether to say this 
or to leave it unsaid. She was well 
aware that her cousin Gregory would 
never marry — that he was a confirmed 
invalid, a man already worn out, old 
before his time, and with one foot in 
the grave. But had she not said it, she 
■ would have seemed to herself to have 
put him aside as *a person altogether 
out of the way. 

“ Gregory will never marry. Of course 
while he lives Dunripple will be his, but 
if Walter were to marry he would make 
arrangements. I dare say you can’t 
understand all about that, my dear ; but 
it would be a very good thing. I should 
be so happy if I thought that you were 
to live at Dunripple always.” 

Edith kissed him, and escaped with- 
out giving any other answer. Ten days 
after that Walter Marrable was to be 
,i.^a.in at Dunripple — only for a few 
' ys; but still in a few days the thing 
, ght be settled. Edith had hearcL 
■ mething of Mary Lowther, but not 
aiach. There had been some idea of a 
atch between Walter and his cousin 
ary, but the idea had been blown 
7ay. So much Edith had heard. To 
rself Walter Marrable had been very 
endly, and, in truth, she had liked 
mm much. They two were not cous- 
ins, but they were so connected, and 
had for 'some weeks been so thrown 
together, as to be almost as good as 
cousins. His presence at Dunripple 
had been very pleasant to her, but she 
had never thought of him as a lover. 
And she had an idea of her own that 
girls ought not to think of men as lovers 
without a good deal of provocation. 

Sir Gregory spoke to Mrs. Brownlow 
on the same subject, and as he told her 
what had taken place between him and 
Edith, she felt herself compelled to 
speak to her daughter. 

” If it should take place, my dear, it 
would be very well, but I would rather 
your uncle had not mentioned it.” 

” It won’t do any harm, mamma. I 
mean that I sha’n’t break my heart.” 

18 


” I believe him to be a very excellent 
young man — not at all like his father, 
who has been as bad as he can be.” 

‘‘Wasn’t he in love with Mary Low- 
ther last winter ?” 

‘‘ I don’t know, my dear. I never be- 
lieve stories of this kind. When I hear 
that a young man is going to be mar- 
ried to a young lady, then I believe that 
they are in love with each other — ” ' 

‘‘It is to be hoped so then, mamma.” 

‘‘But I never believe anything before. 
And I think you may take it for granted 
that there is nothing in that.” 

‘‘ It would be nothing to me, mamma.” 

‘‘ It might be something. But I will 
say nothing more about it. You’ve so 
much good sense that I am quite sure 
you won’t get into trouble. I wish Sir 
Gregory had not spoken to you ; but as 
he has, it may be as well that you should 
know that the family arrangement would 
be very agreeable to your uncle and to 
Cousin Gregory. The title and the 
property must go to Captdin Marrable 
at last, and Sir Gregory would make 
immediate sacrifices for you which per- 
haps he would not make for him.” 

Edith understood all about it very 
clearly, and would have understood all 
about it with half the words. She would 
have little or no fortune of her own, and 
in money her uncle would have very 
little to give to her. Indeed, there was 
no reason why he should give her any- 
thing. She was not connected with 
any of the Marrables by blcod, though 
chance had caused her to litie at Dun- 
ripple almost all her life. She had be- 
come half a Marrable already, and it 
might be very well that she should be- 
come a Marrable altogether. Walter 
was a remarkably handsome man, 
would be a baronet, and would have 
an estate; and might, perhaps, have 
the enjoyment of the estate by marry- 
ing her, earlier than he would were he 
to marry any one else. Edith Brown- 
low understood it all with sufficient 
clearness. But then she understood 
also that young women shouldn’t give 
away their hearts before they are asked 
for them ; and she was quite sure that 
Walter Marrable had made no sign of 


240 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


asking for hers. Nevertheless, within 
her own bosom she did become a little 
anxious about Mary Lowther, and she 
wished that she knew that story. 

On the fourth of August, Walter Mar- 
rable reached Dunripple, and found the 
house given up almost entirely to the 
doctor. Both his uncle and his cousin 
were very ill. When he was able to 
obtain from the doctor information on 
which he could rely, he learned that 
Mr. Marrable was in real danger, but 
that Sir Gregory’s ailment was no more 
than his usual infirmity, heightened by 
anxiety on behalf of his son. “Your 
uncle may live for the next ten years,’’ 
said the doctor, “but I do not know 
what to say about Mr. Marrable.’’ All 
this time the care and time of the 
two ladies were divided between the 
invalids. Mrs. Brownlow tended her 
nephew, and Edith, as usual, waited 
upon Sir Gregory. In such circum- 
stances it was not extraordinary that 
Edith Brownlow and Walter Marrable 
should be thrown much together, es- 
pecially as it was the desire of all con- 
cerned with them that they should be- 
come man and wife. Poor Edith was 
subject to a feeling that everybody 
knew that she was expected to fall in 
love with the man. She thought it 
probable, too, that the man himself 
had been instructed to fall in love with 
her. This no doubt created a great 
difficulty for her — a difficulty which she 
felt to be heavy and inconvenient ; but 
it was lessened by the present condition 
of the household. When there is illness 
in a house, the feminine genius and 
spirit predominate the male. If the ill- 
ness be so severe as to cause a sense 
■ of danger, this is so strongly the case 
that the natural position of the two is 
changed. Edith, quite unconscious of 
the reason, was much less afraid of her 
proposed lover than she would have 
been had there been no going about on 
tiptoe, no questions asked with bated 
breath, no great need for womanly aid. 

Walter had been there four days, and 
was sitting with Edith one evening out 
on the lawn among the rhododendrons. 
When he had found what was the con- 


dition of the household, he had offered 
to go back at once to his regiment at 
Birmingham. But Sir Gregory would 
not hear of it. Sir Gregory hated the 
regiment, and had got an idea in his 
head that his nephew ought not to be 
there at all. He was too weak and dif- 
fident to do it himself, but if any one 
would have arranged it for him, he 
would have been glad to fix an income 
for Walter Marrable on condition that 
Walter should live at home and look 
after the property, and be unto him as 
a son. But nothing had been fixed, 
nothing had been said, and on the day 
but one following the captain was to 
return to Birmingham. Mrs. Brown- 
low was with her nephew, and Walter 
was sitting with Edith among the rho- 
dodendrons, the two having come out 
of the house together after such a din- 
ner as is served in a house of invalids. 
They had become very intimate, but 
Edith Brownlow had almost determined 
that Walter Marrable did not intend to 
fall in love with her. She had quite 
determined that she would not fall in 
love with him till he did. What she 
might do in that case she had not told 
herself. She was not quite sure. He 
was very nice, but she was not quite 
sure. One ought to be very fond of a 
young man, she said to herself, before 
one falls in love with him. Neverthe- 
less, her mind was by no means set 
against him. If one can oblige one’s 
friends, one ought, she said, again to 
herself. 

She had brought him out a cup of 
coffee, and he was sitting in a garden 
chair with a cigar in his mouth. They 
were Walter and Edith to each other, 
just as though they were cousins. In- 
deed, it was necessary that they should 
be cousins to each other for the rest of 
their lives, if no more. 

“Let us drop the captain and the 
miss,” he had said himself : “the mis- 
chief is in it if you and I can’t suppose 
ourselves to be related.” She had as- 
sented cordially, and had called him 
Walter without a moment’s hesitation. 
“Edith,” he said to her now, after he 
had sat for a minute or two with the 



1 . 


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THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


241 


coffee in his hand, “ did you ever hear 
of a certain cousin of ours, called Mary 
Lowther ?” 

“ Oh dear ! yes : she lives with Aunt 
Sarah at Loring — only Aunt Sarah isn’t 
my aunt, and Miss Lowther isn’t my 
cousin.” 

” Just so. She lives at Loring. Edith, 
I love you so much that I wonder 
whether I may tell you the great secret 
of my life ?” 

“ Of course you may. I love secrets, 
and I specially love the secrets of those 
who love me.” She said this with a 
voice perfectly clear and a face without 
a sign of disappointment, but her little 
dream had already been dissipated. 
She knew the secret as well as though 
it hdd been told. 

“ I was engaged to marry her.” 

‘‘And you will marry her ?” 

‘‘It was broken off when I thought 
that I should be forced to go to India. 
The story is very long and very sad. 
It is my own father who has ruined me. 
But I will tell it you some day.” Then 
he told it all as he was sitting there 
with his cigar in his hand. Stories may 
seem to be very long, and yet be told 
very quickly. 

‘‘But you will go back to her now ?” 
said Edith. 

‘‘She has not waited for me.” 

‘‘What do you mean ?” 

‘‘ They tell me that she is to be mar- 
ried to a — to a — certain Mr. Gilmore.” 

‘‘Already!” 

‘‘ He had offered to her twenty times 
before I ever saw her. She never loved 
him, and does not now.” 

‘‘Who has told you this. Captain Mar- 
rable ?” She had not intended to alter 
her form of speech, and when she had 
done so would have given anything to 
have called him then by his Christian 
name. 

‘‘My uncle John.” 

‘‘I would ask herself.” 

‘‘I mean to do so. But somehow, 
treated as I am here, I am bound to tell 
my uncle of it first. And I cannot do 
that while Gregory is so ill.” 

‘‘ I must go up to my uncle now, Wal- 
ter. And I do so hope she may be true 


to you. And I do so hope I may like 
her. Don’t believe anything till she 
has told you herself.” Saying this, 
Edith Brownlow returned to the house, 
and at once put her dream quietly out 
of her sight. She said nothing to her 
mother about it then. It was not ne- 
cessary that she should tell her mother 
as yet. 


CHAPTER LIX. 

NEWS FROM DUNRIPPLE. 

At the end of the first week in Au- 
gust news reached the vicarage at Bull- 
hampton that was not indeed very im- 
portant to the family of Mr. Fenwick, 
but which still seemed to have an im- 
mediate effect on their lives and com- 
fort. The vicar for some days past had 
been, as regarded himself, in a high 
good-humor in consequence of a com- 
munication which he had received from 
Lord St. George. Further mention of this 
communication must be made, but it 
may be deferred to the next chapter, as 
other matters, more momentous, require 
our immediate attention. Mr. Gilmore 
had pleaded very hard that a day might 
be fixed, and had almost succeeded. 
Mary Lowther, driven into a corner, 
had been able to give no reason why 
she should not fix a day, other than this 
— that Mr. Gilmore had promised her • 
that she should not be hurried. ‘‘What 
do you mean ?” Mrs. Fenwick had said, 
angrily. ‘‘You speak of the man who 
is to be your husband as though your 
greatest happiness in life were to keep 
away from him.” Mary Lowther had 
not dared to answer that such would be 
her greatest happiness. Then news had 
reached the vicarage of the illness of 
Gregory Marrable, and of Walter Mar- 
rable’s presence at Dunripple. Thife 
had come of course from Aunt Sarah, 
at Loring ; but it had come in such a 
manner as to seem to justify, for a time, 
Mary’s silence in reference to that ques- 
tion of naming the day. The Marrables 
of Dunripple were not nearly related to 
her. She had no personal remembrance 
of either Sir Gregory or his son. But 


242 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


there was an importance attached to 
the tidings, which, if analyzed, would 
have been found to attach itself to Cap- 
tain Marrable, rather than to the two 
men who were ill ; and this was tacitly 
allowed to have an influence. Aunt 
Sarah had expressed her belief that 
Gregory Marrable was dying ; and had 
gone on to say — trusting to the known 
fact that Mary h^d engaged herself to 
Mr. Gilmore, and to the fact, as be- 
lieved to be a fact, that Walter was 
engaged to Edith Brownlow — had gone 
on to say that Captain Marrable would 
probably remain at Dunripple, and 
would take immediate charge of the 
estate. “I think there is no doubt,” 
said Aunt Sarah, ‘‘that Captain Marra- 
ble and Edith Brownlow will be mar- 
ried.” Mary was engaged to Mr. Gil- 
more, and why should not Aunt Sarah 
tell her news ? 

The squire, who had become elated 
and happy at the period of the rubies, 
had in three days again fallen away 
into a state of angry gloom, rather than 
of melancholy. He said very little just 
now either to Fenwick or to Mrs. Fen- 
wick about his marriage ; and indeed 
he did not say very much to Mary her- 
self. Men were already at work about 
the gardens at the Privets, and he would 
report to her what was done, and would 
tell her that the masons and painters 
ll would begin in a few days. Now and 
again he would ask for her company 
up to the place ; and she had been 
there twice at his instance since the day 
on which she had gone after him of her 
own accord and had fetched him down 
to look at the jewels. But there was 
little or no sympathy between them. 
Mary could not bring herself to care 
about the house or the gardens, though 
she told herself again and again that 
there was she to live for the remainder 
of her life. 

Two letters she received from her 
aunt at Boring within an interval of 
three days, and these letters were both 
filled with details as to the illness of 
Sir Gregory and his son at Dunripple. 
Walter "Marrable sent accounts to his 
uncle the parson,’ and Mrs. Brownlow 


sent accounts to Miss Marrable herself. 
And then, on the day following the re- 
ceipt of the last of these two letters, 
there came one from Walter Marrable 
himself, addressed to Mary Lowther. 
Gregory Marrable was dead, and the 
letter announcing the death of the bar- 
onet’s only son was as follows : 

“ Dunripple, August 12, 1868. 
‘‘My dear Mary: 

‘‘ I hardly know whether you will have 
expected that the news which b have to . 
tell you should reach you direct from 
me ; but I think, upon the whole, that 
it is better that I should write. My 
cousin, Gregory Marrable, Sir Gregory’s 
only son, died this morning. I do not 
doubt but that you know that he has 
been long ill. He has come to the end 
of all his troubles, and the old baronet 
is now childless. He also has been, 
and is still, unwell, though I do not 
know that he is much worse than usual. 
He has been an invalid for years and 
years. Of course he feels his son’s 
death acutely, for he is a father who 
has ever been good to his son. But it 
always seems to me that old people be- 
come so used to death that they do not 
think of it as do we who are younger. 

I have seen him twice to-day since the 
news was told to him, and though he 
spoke of his son with infinite sorrow, he 
was able to talk of other things. 

‘‘ I write to you myself, especially, 
instead of getting one of .the ladies here 
to do so, because I think it proper to 
tell you how things stand with myself. 
Everything is changed with me since 
you and I parted because it was neces- 
sary that I should seek my fortune in 
India. You already know that I have 
abandoned that idea, and I now find 
that I shall leave the army altogether. 
My uncle has wished it since I first 
came here, and he now proposes that I 
shall live here permanently. Of course 
the meaning is, that I should assume 
the position of his heir. My father, 
with whom I personally will have no 
dealing in the matter, stands between 
us. But I do suppose that the family 
affairs will be so arranged that I may 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


243 


feel secure that I shall not be turned 
altogether adrift upon the world. 

“ Dear Mary, I do not know how to 
tell you that as regards my future 
everything now depends on you. They 
have told me that you have accepted 
an offer from Mr. Gilmore. I know no 
more than this — that they have told me 
so. If you will tell me also^that you 
mean to be his wife, I will say no more. 
But until you tell me so, I will not be- 
lieve it. I do not think that you can 
ever love him as you certainly once 
loved me ; and when I think of it, how 
short a time ago that was ! I know that 
I have no right to complain. Our sep- 
aration was my doing as much as yours. 
But I will settle nothing as to my future 
life till I hear from yourself whether or 
no you will come back to me. 

“I shall remain here till after the 
funeral, which will take place on Fri- 
day. On Monday I shall go back to 
Birmingham. This is Sunday, and I 
shall expect to hear from you before 
the week is over. If you bid me, I will 
be with you early next week. If you 
tell me that my coming will be useless, 
why then I shall care very little what 
happens. 

“Yours, with all the love of my heart, 
“Walter Markable.” 

Luckily for Mary, she was alone when 
she read the letter. Her first idea on 
reading it was to think of the words 
which she had used when she had most 
ungraciously consented to become the 
wife of Harry Gilmore: “Were he so 
placed that he could afford to marry a 
poor wife, I should leave you and go to 
him.” She remembered them accu- 
rately. She had made up her mind 
at the time that she would say them, 
thinking that thus he would be driven 
from her, and that she would be at rest 
from his solicitations, from those of her 
friends and from the qualms of her own 
conscience. He had chosen to claim 
her in spite of those words, and now 
the thing had happened to the possibil- 
ity of which she had referred. Poor as 
she was, Walter Marrable was able to 
make her his wife. She held in her 


hand his letter telling her that it was 
so. All her heart was his — as much 
now as it had ever been ; and it was 
impossible that she should not go to 
him. She had told Mr. Gilmore her- 
self that she could never love again as 
she loved Walter Marrable. She had 
been driven to believe that she could 
never be his wife, and she had separated 
herself from him. She had separated 
herself from him, and persuaded her- 
self that it would be expedient for her 
to become the wife of this other man. 
But up to this very moment she had 
never been able to overcome her horror 
at the prospect. From day to day she 
had thought that she must give it up, 
even when they were dinning into her 
ears the tidings that Walter Marrable 
was to marry that girl at Dunripple. 
But that had been a falsehood, an ab- 
solute falsehood. There had been no 
such thought in his bosom. He had 
never been untrue to her. Ah, how 
much the nobler of the two had he 
been ! 

And ysJ; she had struggled hard to do 
right, to think of others more than of 
herself — so to dispose of herself that 
she might be of some use in the world. 
And it had come to this ! It was quite 
impossible now that she should marry 
Harry Gilmore. There had hitherto 
been at any rate an attempt on her part 
to reconcile herself to that marriage, 
but now the attempt was impossible. 
What right could she have to refuse the 
man she loved when he told her that 
all his happiness depended on her love ? 
She could see it now. With all her de- 
sire to do right, she had done foul 
wrong in accepting Mr. Gilmore. She 
had done foul wrong, though she had 
complied with the advice of all her 
friends. It could not but have been 
wrong, as it had brought her to this — 
her and him. But for the future she 
might yet be right — if she only knew 
how. That it would be wrong to marry 
Harry Gilmore — to think of marrying 
him when her heart was so stirred by 
the letter which she held in her hand — 
of that she was quite sure. She had 
done the man an injury for which she 


244 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


could never atone. Of that she was 
well aware. But the injury was done, 
and could not now be undone. And 
had she not told him when he came to 
her that she would even yet return to 
Walter Marrable if Walter Marrable 
were able to take her ? 

She went down stairs slowly, just be- 
fore the hour for the children’s dinner, 
and found her friend, with one or two 
of the bairns, in the garden. “Janet,” 
she said, “I have had a letter from 
Dunripple.” 

Mrs. Fenwick looked into her face 
and saw that it was sad and sorrowful : 
“What news, Mary ?” 

“ My cousin, Gregory Marrable, is — 
no more : he died on Sunday morning.” 
This was on the Monday. 

“You expected it, I suppose, from 
your aunt’s letter ?” 

“ Oh yes : it has been sudden at last, 
it seems.” 

“And Sir Gregory ?” 

“He is pretty well. He is getting 
better.” 

“ I pity him the loss of his son — poor 
old man !” Mrs. Fenwick was far too 
clever not to see that the serious, sol- 
emn aspect of Mary’s face was not due 
altogether to the death of a distant 
cousin, whom she herself did not even 
remember ; but she was too wise also 
to refer to what she presumed to be 
Mary’s special grief at the moment. 
Mary was doubtless thinking of the 
altered circumstances of her cousin 
Walter, but it' was as well now that she 
should speak as little as possible about 
that cousin. Mrs. Fenwick could not 
turn altogether to another subject, but 
she would, if possible, divert her friend 
from her present thoughts. “ Shall you 
go into mourning?” she asked: “he was 
only your second cousin, but people 
have ideas so different about those 
things.” 

“ I do not know,” said Mary, listlessly. 

“ If I were you I would consult Mr. 
Gilmore. He has a right to be con- 
sulted. If you do, it should be veiy 
slight.” 

“I shall go into mourning,” said 
Mary, suddenly, remembering at that 


moment what was Walter’s position in 
the household at Dunripple. Then the 
tears came up into her eyes, she knew 
not why ; and she walked off by her- 
self amidst the garden shrubs. Mrs. 
Fenwick watched her as she went, but 
could not quite understand it. Those 
tears had not been for a second cousin 
who had never been known. And then, 
during the last few weeks, Mary, in re- 
gard to herself, had been prone to do 
anything that Mr. Gilmore would ad- 
vise, as though she could make up by 
obedience for the want of that affection 
which she owed to him. Now, when 
she was told that she ought to consult 
Mr. Gilmore, she flatly refused to do so. 

Mary came up the garden a few 
minutes afterward, and as she passed 
toward the house she begged to be ex- 
cused from going into lunch that day. 
Lord St. George was coming up to lunch 
at the vicarage, as will be explained in 
the next chapter. 


CHAPTER LX. 

LORD ST. GEORGE IS VERY CUNNING. 

Lord St. George began to throw oil 
upon the waters in reference to that un- 
fortunate chapel at Bullhampton a day 
or two after his interview with his father 
in the lawyer’s chambers. His father 
had found himself compelled to yield — 
had been driven, as it were, by the 
Fates, to accord to his son permission 
to do as his son should think • best. 
There -came to be so serious a trouble 
in consequence of that terrible mistake 
of Packer’s that the poor old marquis 
was unable to defend himself from the 
necessity of yielding. On that day, be- 
fore he left his son at Westminster, 
when their roads lay into the different 
council-chambers of the state, he had 
prayed hard that the oil might not be 
very oily. But his son would not bate 
him an inch of his surrender. 

“ He is so utterly worthless,” the mar- 
quis had said, pleading hard as he spoke 
of his enemy. 

“I’m not quite sure, my lord, that 
you understand the man,” St. George 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


245 


had said. “You hate him, and no doubt 
he hates you.” 

“ Horribly !” ejaculated the marquis. 

“You intend to be as good as you 
know how to be to all those people at 
Bullhampton ?” 

“Indeed I do, St. George,” said the 
marquis, almost with tears in his eyes. 

“And I shouldn’t wonder if he did, 
too.” 

“But look at his life!” said the 
marquis. 

“ It isn’t always easy to look at a man’s 
life. We are always looking at men’s 
lives, and always making mistakes. 
The bishop thinks he is a good sort of 
fellow, and the bishop isn’t the man to 
like a debauched, unbelieving, reckless 
parson, who, according to your ideas, 
must be leading a life of open shame 
and profligacy. I’m inclined to think 
there must be a mistake.” 

The unfortunate marquis groaned 
deeply as he walked away to the august 
chamber of the Lords. 

These and such-like are the troubles 
that sit heavy on a man’s heart. If 
search for bread and meat and raiment 
be set aside, then, beyond that, our 
happiness or misery here depends chief- 
ly on success or failure in small things. 
Though a man when he turns into bed 
may be sure that he has unlimited thou- 
sands at his command, though all so- 
ciety be open to him, though he know 
himself to be esteemed handsome, clev- 
er and fashionable — even though his 
digestion be good, and he have no doc- 
tor to deny him tobacco, champagne or 
made dishes— still, if he be conscious 
of failure there where he has striven to 
succeed, even though it be in the hum- 
bling of an already humble adversary, 
he will stretch and roll and pine — a 
wretched being. How happy is he who 
can get his fretting done for him by 
deputy ! 

Lord St. George wrote to the parson 
a few days after his interview with his 
father. He and Lord Trowbridge oc- 
cupied the same house in London, and 
always met at breakfast ; but nothing 
further was said between them during 
rhe remaining days in town upon the 


subject. Lord St. George wrote to the 
parson, and his father had left London 
for Turnover before Mr. Fenwick’s an- 
swer was received. 

“My dear Sir” (Lord St. George had 
said) : “ My father has put into my 
hands your letter about the dissenting 
chapel at Bullhampton. It seems to 
me that he has made a mistake, and 
that you are very angry. Couldn’t we ar- 
range this little matter without fighting ? 
There is not a landlord in England 
more desirous of doing good to his ten- 
ants than my father ; and I am quite 
willing to believe that there is not an 
incumbent in England more desirous 
of doing good to his parishioners than 
you. I leave London for Wiltshire on 
Saturday, the nth. If you will meet 
me, I will drive over to Bullhampton 
on Monday, the 13th. 

“Yours, truly, 

“ St. George. 

“No doubt you’ll agree with me in 
thinking that internecine fighting in a 
parish between the landlord and the 
clergyman cannot be for the good of 
the people.” 

Thus it was that Lord St. George be- 
gan to throw his oil upon the waters. 

It may be a doubt whether it should 
be ascribed to Mr. Fenwick as a weak- 
ness or a strength that, though he was 
'very susceptible of anger, and though 
he could maintain his anger at glowing 
heat as long as fighting continued, it 
would all evaporate and leave him 
harmless as a dove at the first glimpse 
of an olive branch. He knew this so 
well of himself that it would sometimes 
be a regret to him in the culmination 
of his wrath that he would not be able to 
maintain it till the hour of his revenge 
should come. On receiving Lord St. 
George’s letter, he at once sat down 
and wrote to that nobleman, telling him 
that he would be happy to see him at 
lunch on the Monday at two o’clock. 
Then there came a rejoinder from Lord 
St. George, saying that he would be at 
the vicarage at the hour named. 

Mrs. Fenwick was of course there to 
entertain the nobleman, whom she had 


246 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMFTON. 


never seen before, and during the lunch 
very little was said about the chapel, 
and not a word was said about other 
causes of complaint. 

“That is a terrible building, Mrs. Fen- 
wick,” Lord St. George had remarked. 

“We’re getting used to it now,” Mrs. 
Fenwick had replied; “and Mr. Fen- 
wick thinks it good for purposes of 
mortification.” 

“We must see and move the sack- 
cloth and ashes a little farther off,” said 
his lordship. 

Then they ate their lunch and talked 
about the parish, and expressed a joint 
hope that the Grinder would be hung at 
Salisbury. 

“Now let us go and see the corpus 
delicti," said the vicar as soon as they 
had drawn their chairs from the table. 

The two men went out and walked 
round the chapel, and, finding it open, 
walked into it. Of course there were 
remarks made by both of them. It 
was acknowledged that it was ugly, 
misplaced, uncomfortable, detestable to 
the eye and ear and general feeling — 
except in so far as it might suit the 
wants of people who were not sufficient- 
ly educated to enjoy the higher tone 
and more elaborate language of the 
Church of England services. It was 
thus that they spoke to each other, quite 
in an aesthetic manner. 

Lord St. George had said as he entered 
the chapel that it must come down as a 
matter of course, and the vicar had 
suggested that there need be no hurry. 

“ They tell me that it must be removed 
some day,” said the vicar, “but as. I am 
not likely to leave the parish, nobody 
need start the matter for a year or two.” 
Lord St. George was declaring that ad- 
vantage could not be taken of such a 
concession on Mr. Fenwick’s part, when 
a third person entered the building 
and walked toward them with a quick 
step. 

“ Here is Mr. Puddleham, the minis- 
ter,” said Mr. Fenwick; and the future 
lord of Bullhampton was introduced to 
the present owner of the pulj^it under 
which they were standing. 

“My lord,” said the minister, “I am 


proud indeed to have the honor of meet- 
ing your lordship in our new chapel, and 
of expressing to your lordship the high 
sense entertained by me and my con- 
gregation of your noble father’s munif- 
icent liberality to us in the matter of the 
land.” 

In saying this Mr. Puddleham never 
once turned his face upon the vicar. 
He presumed himself at the present 
moment to be at feud with the vicar in 
most deadly degree. Though the vicar 
would occasionally accost him in the 
village, he always answered the vicar 
as though they two were enemies. He 
had bowed when he came up the chapel, 
but he had bowed to the stranger. If 
the vicar took any of that courtesy to 
himself, that was not his fault. 

“ I’m afraid we were a little too quick 
there,” said Lord St. George. 

“ I hope not, my lord — I hope not. I 
have heard a rumor, but I have inquired. 
I have inquired, and — ” 

“ The truth is, Mr. Puddleham, that 
we are standing on Mr. Fenwick’s pri- 
vate ground this moment.” 

“You are quite welcome to the use of 
it, Mr. Puddleham,” said the vicar. Mr. 
Puddleham assumed a look of dignity 
and frowned. He could not even yet 
believe that his friend the marquis had 
made so fatal a mistake. 

“We must build you another chapel : 
that will be about the long and short of 
it, Mr. Puddleham.” 

“ My lord, I should think there must 
be some — mistake. Some error must 
have crept in somewhere, my lord. I 
have made inquiry — ” 

“It has been a very big error,” said 
Lord St. George, “and it has crept into 
Mr. Fenwick’s glebe in a very palpable 
form. There is no use in discussing it, 
Mr. Puddleham.” 

“And why didn’t the reverend gentle- 
man claim the ground when the works 
were commenced?” demanded the in- 
dignant minister, turning now for the 
first time to the vicar, and doing so with 
a visage full of wrath and a graceful up- 
lifting of his right hand. 

“The reverend gentleman was very 
ignorant of matters with which he ought 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


247 


to have been better acquainted,” said 
Mr. Fenwick himself. 

“Very ignorant, indeed,” said Mr. 
Puddleham. “My lord, I am inclined 
to think that we can assert our right to 
this chapel and maintain it. My lord, 
I am of opinion that the whole hierarchy 
of the Episcopal Established Church in 
England cannot expel us. My lord, 
who will be the man to move the first 
brick from this sacred edifice?” And 
Mr. Puddleham pointed up to the pulpit 
as though he knew well where that 
brick was ever to be found when duty 
required its presence. “My lord, I 
would propose that nothing should be 
done ; and then let us see who will 
attempt to close this chapel door against 
the lambs of the Lord who come here 
for pasture in their need.” 

“ The lambs shall have pasture and 
shall have their pastor,” said St. George, 
laughing. “We’ll move this chapel to 
ground that is our own, and make ev- 
erything as right as a trivet for you. 
You don’t want to intrude. I’m sure.” 

Mr. Puddleham’ s eloquence was by 
no means exhausted ; but at last, when 
they had left the chapel and the ground 
immediately around the chapel which 
Mr. Puddleham would insist upon re- 
garding as his own, they did manage 
to shake him off. 

“And now, Mr. Fenwick,” said Lord 
St. George, in his determined purpose 
to throw oil upon the waters, “what is 
this unfortunate quarrel between you 
and my father ?” 

“You had better ask him that, my 
lord.” 

“ I have asked him, of course, and of 
course he has no answer to make. No 
doubt you intended to enrage him when 
you wrote him that letter which he 
showed me.” 

“Certainly I did.” 

“ I hardly see how good is to be done 
by angering an old man who stands 
high in the world’s esteem — ” 

“ Had he not stood high, my lord, I 
should probably have passed him by.” 

“ I can understand all that — that one 
man should be a mark for another’s 
scorn because he is a marquis and 


wealthy. But what I can’t understand 
is, that such a one as you should think 
that good can come from it.” 

“ Do you know what your father has 
said of me ?” 

“ I’ve no doubt you both say very 
hard things of each other.” 

“ I never said an evil thing of him be- 
hind his back that I have not said as 
strongly to his face,” said Mr. Fenwick, 
with much of indignation in his tone. 

“ Do you really think that that miti- 
gates the injury done to my father?” 
said Lord St. George. 

“ Do you know that he has complain- 
ed of me to the bishop ?” 

“Yes, and the bishop took your part.” 

“No thanks to your father. Lord St. 
George. Do you know that he has ac- 
cused me publicly of the grossest vices ; 
that he has — ^that he has — that he has — 
There is nothing so bad that he hasn’t 
said it of me.” 

“Upon my word, I think you are even 
with him, Mr. Fenwick : I do indeed.” 

“What I have said I have said to 
his face. I have made no accusation 
against him. Come, my lord, I am will- 
ing enough to let bygones be bygones. 
If Lord Trowbridge will condescend to 
say that he will drop all animosity to 
me. Twill forgive him the injuries he 
has done me. But I cannot admit my- 
self to have been wrong.” 

“ I never knew any man who would,” 
said Lord St. George. 

“ If the marquis will put out his hand 
to me, I will accept it,” said the vicar. 

“Allow me to do so on hjs behalf,” 
said the son. 

And thus the quarrel was presumed 
to be healed. Lord St. George went to 
the inn for his horse, and the vioar, as 
he walked across to the vicarage, felt 
that he had been — done. This young 
lord had been very clever, and had 
treated the quarrel as though on even 
terms — as if the offences on each side 
had been equal. And yet the vicar 
knew very well that he had been right 
— right without a single slip — right from 
the beginning to the end. “He has 
been' clever,” he said to himself, “and 
he shall have the advantage of his clev- 


248 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


emess.” Then he resolved that as far 
as he was concerned the quarrel should 
in truth be over. 


CHAPTER LXI. 

MARY LOWTHER’S TREACHERY. 

While the vicar was listening to the 
eloquence of Mr. Puddleham in the 
chapel, and was being cozened out of 
his just indignation by Lord St. George, 
a terrible scene was going on in the 
drawing-room of the vicarage. Mary 
Lowther, as the reader knows, had de- 
clared that she would wear mourning for 
her distant cousin, and had declined to 
appear at lunch before Lord St. George. 
Mrs. Fenwick, putting these things to- 
gether, knew that much was the matter, 
but she did not know how much. She 
did not as yet anticipate the terrible 
state of things which was to be made 
known to her that afternoon. 

Mary was quite aware that the thing 
must be settled. In the first place, she 
must answer Captain Marrable’s letter. 
And then it was her bounden duty to 
let Mr. Gilmore know her mind as soon 
as she knew it herself. It might be 
easy enough' for her to write to Walter 
Marrable. That which -she had to say 
to him would be pleasant enough in the 
saying. But that could not be said till 
the other thing should be unsaid. And 
how was that unsaying to be accom- 
plished ? Nothing could be done with- 
out the aid of Mrs. Fenwick ; and now 
she was afraid of Mrs. Fenwick, as the 
guilty are always afraid of those who 
will have to judge their guilt. While the 
children were at dinner, and while the 
lord was sitting at lunch, she remained 
up in her own room. From her win- 
dow she could see the two men walking 
across the vicarage grounds toward the 
chapel, and she knew that her friend 
would be alone. Her story must be 
told to Mrs. Fenwick, and to Mrs. Fen- 
wick only. It would be impossible for 
her to speak of her determination be- 
fore the vicar till he should have re- 
ceived a first notice of it from his wife. 
And there certainly must be no delay. 


The men were hardly out of sight be- 
fore she had resolved to go down at 
once. She looked at herself in the 
glass, and sponged the mark of tears 
from her eyes and smoothed her hair, 
and then descended. She never before 
had felt so much in fear of her friend ; 
and yet it was her friend who was main- 
ly the cause of this mischief which sur- 
rounded her, and who had persuaded 
her to evil. At Janet Fenwick’s instance 
she had undertaken to marry a man 
whom she did not love ; and yet she 
feared to go to Janet Fenwick with the 
story of her repentance. Why not in- 
dignantly demand of her friend assist- 
ance in extricating herself from the in- 
jury which that friend had brought 
upon her ? 

She found Mrs. Fenwick with the 
children in the little breakfast-parlor, 
to which they had been banished by 
the coming of Lord St. George. “Janet,” 
she said, “ come and take a turn with 
me in the garden.” It was now the 
middle of August, and life at the vicar- 
age was spent almost as much out of 
doors as within. The ladies went about 
with parasols, and would carry their 
hats hanging in their hands. There 
was no delay therefore, and the two 
were on the gravel-path almost as soon 
as Mary’s request was made. “I did 
not show you my letter from Dunrip- 
ple,” she said, putting her hand into 
her pocket, “but I might as well do so 
now. You will have to read it.” 

She took out the document, but did 
not at once hand it to her companion. 
“ Is there anything wrong, Mary ?” said 
^Mrs. Fenwick. 

“Wrong? Yes — very, very wrong. 
Janet, it is no use your talking to me. 
I have quite made up my mind. I can- 
not and I will not marry Mr. Gilmore.” 

“ Mary, this is insanity.” 

“You may say what you please, but 
I am determined. I cannot and I will 
not. Will you help me out of my dif- 
ficulty ?” 

“ Certainly not in the way you mean — 
certainly not. It cannot be either for 
your good or for his. After what has 
passed, how on earth could you bring 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


249 


yourself to make such a proposition to 
him ?” 

* I do not know : that is what I feel 
the most. I do not know how I shall 
tell him. But he must be told. I 
thought that perhaps Mr. Fenwick 
would do it.” 

“ I am quite sure he will do nothing 
of the kind. Think of it, Mary ! How 
can you bring yourself to be so false to 
a man ?” 

‘‘I have not been false to him. I 
have been false to myself, but never to 
him. I told him how it was. When 
you drove me on — ” 

“Drove you on, Mary?” 

“ I do not mean to be ungrateful or 
to say hard things; but when you 
made me feel that if he were satisfied I 
also might put up with it, I told him 
that I could never love him. I told 
him that I did love, and ever should 
lof e, Walter Marrable. I told him that 
I had nothing, nothing, nothing to give 
him. But he would take no answer but 
the one, and I did — I did give it him. 
I know I did ; and I have never had a 
moment of happiness since. And now 
has come this letter. Janet, do not be 
cruel to me. Do not speak to me as 
though everything must be stern and 
hard and cruel.” Then she handed up 
the letter, and Mrs. Fenwick read it as 
they walked. 

“And is he to be made a tool because 
the other man has changed his mind ?” 
said Mrs. Fenwick. 

“ Walter has never changed his mind.” 

“ His plans, then. It comes to the 
same thing. Do you know that you 
will have to answer for his life or for 
his reason ? Have you not learned yet 
to understand the constancy of his 
nature ?” 

“Is it my fault that he should be con- 
stant ? I told him when he offered to 
me that if Walter were to come back to 
me and ask me again, I should go to 
him in spite of any promise that I had 
made. I said so as plain as I am say- 
ing this to you.” 

“ I am quite sure that he did not un- 
derstand it so.” 

“Janet, indeed he did.” 


“ No man would have submitted him- 
self to an engagement with such a con- 
dition. It is quite impossible. What ! 
Mr. Gilmore knew when you took him 
that if this gentleman should choose to ' 
change his mind at any moment before 
you were actually married, you would 
walk off and go back to him !” 

“ I told him so, Janet. He will not 
deny that I told him so. When I told 
him so, I was sure that he would have 
declined such an engagement. But he 
did not, and I had no way of escape. 
Janet, if you could know what I have 
been suffering, you would not be cruel 
to me. Think what it would have been 
to you to have to marry a man you did 
not love, and to break the heart of one 
you did love ! Of course Mr Gilrqore 
is your friend.” 

“He is our friend.” 

“And, of course, you do not care for 
Captain Marrable.” 

“I never even saw him.” 

“ But you might put yourself in my 
place and judge fairly between us. 
There has not been a thought or a feel- 
ing in my heart concealed from you 
since first all this began. You have 
known that I have never loved your 
friend.” 

“ I know that, after full consideration, 
you have accepted him ; and I know 
also that he is a man who will devote 
his whole life to making you happy.” 

“ It can never be. You may as well 
believe me. If you will not help me, 
nor Mr. Fenwick, I must tell him my- 
self ; or I must write to him and leave 
the place suddenly. I know that I have 
behaved badly. I have tried to do 
right, but I have done wrong. When I 
came here I was very unhappy. How 
could I help being unhappy when I had 
lost all that I cared for in the world ? 
Then you told me that I might at any 
rate be of some use to some one by 
marrying your friend. You do not 
know how I strove to make myself fond 
of him. And then, at last, when the 
time came that I had to answer him, I 
thought that I would tell him every- 
thing. I thought that if I told him the 
truth he would see that we had better 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


250 

be apart. But when I told him, leaving 
him, as I imagined, no choice but to 
-'reject me, he chose to take me. Well, 
Janet ; at any rate, then, as I was taught 
to believe, there was no one to be ruin- 
ed by this — no one to be broken on the 
wheel — ^but myself ; and I thought that 
if I struggled, I might so do my duty 
that he might be satisfied. " I see that I 
was wrong, but you should not rebuke 
me for it. I had tried to do as you bade 
me. But I did tell him that if ever this 
thing happened I should leave him. It 
has happened, and I must leave him.” 
Mrs. Fenwick had let her speak on with- 
out interrupting her, intending, when 
she had finished, to say definitely that 
they at the vicarage could not make 
themselves parties to any treason to- 
ward Mr. Gilmore ; but when Mary had 
come to the end of her story, her friend’s 
heart was softened toward her. She 
walked silently along the path, refrain- 
ing at any rate from those bitter argu- 
ments with which she had at first thought 
to confound Mary in her treachery. “ I 
do think you love me,” said Mary. 

‘‘Indeed I love you.” 

‘‘ Then help me — do help me ! I will 
go on my knees to him to beg his 
pardon.” 

‘‘I do not know what to say to it. 
Begging his pardon will be of no avail. 
As for myself, I should not dare to tell 
him. We used to think, when he was 
hopeless before, that dwelling on it all 
would drive him to absolute madness. 
And it will be worse now. Of course it 
will be ^orse.” 

‘‘What am I to do ?” Mary paused 
a moment, and then added, sharply, 
‘‘ There is one thing I will not do : I will 
not go to the altar and become his wife.” 

‘‘I suppose I had better tell Frank,” 
said Mrs. Fenwick, after another pause. 

This was, of course, what Mary 
Lowther desired, but she begged for 
and obtained permission not to see the 
vicar herself that evening. She would 
keep her own room that night, and 
meet him the next morning before 
prayers as best she might. 

When the vicar came back to the 
house, his mind was so full of the chapel 


and Lord St. George, and the admirable 
manner in which he had been cajoled 
out of his wrath without the slightest 
admission on the part of the lord that 
his father had ever been wrong — his 
thoughts were so occupied with all this 
and with Mr. Puddleham’s oratory that 
he did not at first give his wife an op- 
portunity of telling Mary Lowther’s 
story. 

‘‘ We shall all of us have to go over 
to Turnover next week,” he said. 

‘‘You may go. I won’t.” 

‘‘ And I shouldn’t wonder if the mar- 
quis were to offer me a better living, so 
that I might be close to him. We are 
to be the lamb and the wolf sitting 
down together.” 

‘‘And which is to be the lamb ?” 

‘‘ That does not matter. But the worst 
of it is, Puddleham won’t come and be 
a lamb too. Here am I, who have suf- 
fered pretty nearly as much as St. PAil, 
have forgiven all my enemies all round, 
and shaken hands with the marquis by 
proxy, while Puddleham has been man 
enough to maintain the dignity of his 
indignation. The truth is, that the pos- 
session of a grievance is the one state 
of human blessedness. As long as the 
chapel was there, malgre moi, I could 
revel in my wrong. It turns out now 
that I can send poor Puddleham adrift 
to-morrow, and he immediately becomes 
the hero of the hour. I wish your broth- 
er-in-law had not been so officious in 
finding it all out.” 

Mrs. Fenwick postponed her story till 
the evening. 

‘‘Where is Mary?” Fenwick asked, 
when dinner was announced. 

‘‘She is not quite well, and will not 
come down. Wait a while, and you 
shall be told.” He did wait, but the 
moment that they were alone again he 
asked his question. Then Mrs. Fen- 
wick told the whole story, hardly ex- 
pressing an opinion herself as she told 
it. ‘‘ I don’t think she is to be shaken,” 
she said at last. 

‘‘She is behaving very badly — very 
badly — very badly.” 

‘‘I am not quite sure, Frank, whether 
we have behaved wisely,” said his wife. 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


251 


“ If it must be told him, it will drive 
him mad,” said Fenwick. 

“ I think it must be told.” 

“And I am to tell it ?” 

“That is what she asks.” 

“ I can’t say that I have made up my 
mind, but, as far as I can see at pres- 
ent, I will do nothing of the kind. She 
has no right to expect it.” 

Before they went to bed, however, 
he also had been somewhat softened. 
When his wife declared, with tears in 
her eyes, that she would never interfere 
at match-making again, he began to 
perceive that he also had endeavored 
to be a match-maker and had failed. 


CHAPTER LXII. 

UP AT THE PRIVETS. 

The whole of the next day was passed 
dn wretchedness by the party at the vic- 
arage. The vicar, as he greeted Miss 
Lowther in the morning, had not meant 
to be severe, having been specially cau- 
tioned against severity by his wife, but 
he had been unable not to be silent and 
stern. Not a word was spoken about 
Mr. Gilmore till after breakfast, and 
then it was no more than a word. 

“ I would think better of this, Mary,” 
said the vicar. 

“I cannot think better of it,” she 
replied. 

He refused, however, to go to Mr. 
Gilmore that day, demanding that she 
should have another day in which to 
revolve the matter in her mind. It was 
understood, however, that if she per- 
sisted he would break the matter to her 
lover. Then this trouble was aggra- 
vated by the coming of Mr. Gilmore to 
the vicarage, though it may be that the 
visit was of use by preparing him in 
some degree for the blow. When he 
came Mary was not to be seen. Fan- 
cying that he might call, she remained 
up stairs all day, and Mrs. Fenwick was 
obliged to say that she was unwell. “ Is 
she really ill ?” the poor man had asked. 
Mrs. Fenwick, driven hard by the dif- 
ficulty of her position, had said that she 
did not believe Mary to be very ill, but 


that she was so discomposed by news 
from Dunripple that she could not come 
down. “ I should have thought that I 
might have seen her,” said Mr. Gilmore, 
with that black frown upon his brow 
which now they all knew so well. Mrs. 
Fenwick made no reply, and then the 
unhappy man went away. He wanted 
no further informant to tell him that the 
woman to whom he was pledged regard- 
ed her engagement to him with aversion. 

“I must see her again before I go,” 
Fenwick said to his wife the next morn- 
ing. And he did see her. But Mary 
was absolutely firm. When he remarked 
that she was pale and worn and ill, she 
acknowledged that she had not closed 
her eyes during those two nights. 

“And it must be so ?” he asked, hold- 
ing her hand tenderly. 

“ I am so grieved that you should have 
such a mission,” she replied. 

Then he explained to her that he was 
not thinking of himself, sad as the oc- 
casion would be to him. But if this 
great sorrow could have been spared to 
his friend ! It could not, however, be 
spared. Mary was quite firm, at any 
rate, as to that. No consideration 
should induce her now to marry Mr. 
Gilmore. Mr. Fenwick, on her behalf, 
might express his regret for the grief 
she had caused in any terms that he 
might think fit to use — might humiliate 
her to the ground if he thought it proper. 
And yet had not Mr. Gilmore sinned 
more against her than had she against 
him? Had not the manner in which 
he had grasped “at her hand been un- 
manly and unworthy ? But of this, 
though she thought much of it, she said 
nothing now to Mr. Fenwick. This 
commission to the vicar was that he 
should make her free ; and in doing 
this he might use what language and 
make what confessions he pleased. He 
must, however, make her free. 

After breakfast he started upon his 
errand with a very heavy heart. He 
loved his friend dearly. Between these 
two there had grown up, now during a 
period of many years, that undemon- 
strative, unexpressed, almost uncon- 
scious affection which with men will 


252 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


often make the greatest charm of their 
lives, but which is held by women to 
be quite unsatisfactory and almost nu- 
gatory. It may be doubted whether 
either of them had ever told the other 
of his regard. “Yours always,” in 
writing, was the warmest term that was 
ever used. Neither ever dreamed of 
suggesting that the absence of the other 
would be a cause of grief or even of dis- 
comfort. They would bicker with each 
other, and not unfrequently abuse each 
other. Chance threw them much to- 
gether, but they never did anything to 
assist chance. Women who love each 
other as well will always be expressing 
their love, always making plans to be 
together, always doing little things each 
for the gratification of the other — con- 
stantly making presents backward and 
forward. These two men had never 
given anything, one to the other, be- 
yond a worn-out walking-stick or a 
cigar. They were rough to each other, 
caustic and almost ill-mannered. But 
they thoroughly trusted each other; 
and the happiness, prosperity, and, 
above" all, the honor of' the one, were, 
to the other, matters of keenest mo- 
ment. The bigger man of the two — 
the one who felt rather than knew him- 
self to be the bigger — had to say that 
which would go nigh to break his 
friend’s heart, and the task which he 
had in hand made him sick at his own 
heart. He walked slowly across the 
fields, turning over in his mind the 
words he would use. His misery for 
his friend was infinitely greater than 
any that he had suffered on his own ac- 
count, either in regard to Mr. Puddle- 
ham’s chapel or the calumny of the 
marquis. 

He found Gilmore sauntering about 
the stableyard. “Old fellow,” he said, 
“ come along : I have got something to 
say to you.” 

“ It is about Mary, I suppose ?” 

“Well, yes — it is about Mary. You 
mustn’t be a woman, Harry, or let a 
woman make you seriously wretched.” 

“ I know it all. That will do.. You 
need not say anything more.” Then 
he put his hands into the pockets of his 


shooting-coat, and walked off as though 
all had been said that was necessary. 
Fenwick had told his message and 
might now go away. As for himself, in 
the sharpness of his agony he had as 
yet made no scheme for a future pur- 
pose. Only this he had determined. 
He would see that false woman once 
again, and tell her what he thought of 
her conduct. 

But Fenwick knew that his task was 
not yet done. Gilmore might walk off, 
but he was bound to follow the unhappy 
man. 

“ Harry,” he said, “you had better let 
me come with you for a while. You 
had better hear what I have to say.” 

“ I want to hear nothing more. What 
good can it be ? Like a fool, I had set 
my fortune on one cast of the die, and 
I have lost it. Why she should have 
added on the misery and disgrace of 
the last few weeks to the rest I cannot 
imagine. I suppose it has been her way 
of punishing me for my persistency.” 

“It has not been that, Harry.” 

“God knows what it has been ! I do 
not understand it.” He had turned 
from the stables toward the house, and 
had now come to a part of the grounds 
in which workmen were converting a 
little paddock in front of the house into 
a garden. The gardener was there with 
four or five laborers, and planks, and 
barrows, and mattocks, and heaps of 
undistributed earth and gravel were 
spread about. “Give over with this,” 
he said to the gardener, angrily. The 
man touched his hat and stood amazed. 
“ Leave it, I say, and send these men 
away. Pay them for their work and 
let them go.” 

“You don’t mean as we are to leave 
it all like this, sir ?” 

“ I do mean that you are to leave it 
just as it is.” There was a man stand- 
ing with a shovel in his hand leveling 
some loose earth, and the squire, going 
up to him, took the shovel from him 
and threw it upon the ground, “When 
I say a thing, I mean it. Ambrose, 
take these men away. I will not have 
another stroke of work done here.” 
The vicar came up to him and whisper- 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON, 


253 


ed into his ear a prayer that he would 
not expose himself before the men, but 
the squire cared nothing for his friend’s 
whisper. He shook off the vicar’s hand 
from his arm and stalked away into the 
house. 

Two rooms — the two drawing-rooms 
as they were called — on the ground 
floor had been stripped of the old paper, 
and were now in that state of apparent 
ruin which always comes upon such 
rooms when workmen enter them with 
their tools. There were tressels with 
a board across them, on which a man 
was standing at this moment whose 
business it was to decorate the ceiling. 

“ That will do,” said the squire. “You 
may get down and leave the place.” 
The man stood still on his board, with 
his eyes open and his brush in his hand. 
“I have changed my mind, and you 
may come down,” said Mr. Gilmore. 
“ Tell Mr. Cross to send me his bill for 
^ what he has done, and it shall be paid. 
Corrie down when I tell you. I will 
have nothing further touched in the 
house.” He went from room to room 
and gave the same orders, and after a 
while succeeded in turning the paper- 
hangers and painters out of the house. 
Fenwick had followed him from room 
to room, making every now and then 
an attempt at remonstrance ; but the 
squire had paid no attention either to 
his words or to his presence. 

At last they were alone together in 
Gilmore’s own study or office, and then 
the vicar spoke. “Harry,” he said, “I 
am indeed surprised that such a one as 
you should not have more manhood at 
his command.” 

“ Were you ever tried as I am ?” 

“What matters that? You are re- 
sponsible for your own conduct, and I 
tell you that your conduct is unmanly.” 

“Why should I have the rooms done 
up ? I shall never live here. What is 
it to me now how they are left ? The 
sooner I stop a useless expenditure the 
better. It was being done for her, not 
for me.” 

“Of course you will live here.” 

“You know nothing about it. You 
cannot know anything about it. Why 
19 


has she treated me in this way ? To 
send up to a man and simply tell him 
that she has changed her mind ! God 
in heaven ! that you should bring me 
such a message !” 

“You have not allowed me to give 
my message yet.” 

“Give it me, then, and have done 
with it. Has she not sent you to tell 
me that she has changed her mind ?” 

Now that opportunity was given to 
him, the vicar did not know how to tell 
his message. “ Perhaps it would have 
been better that Janet should have 
come to you.” 

“ It don’t make much difference who 
comes. She’ll never come again. I 
don’t suppose, Frank, you can under- 
stand the sort of love I have had for 
her. You have never been driven by 
failure to such longing as mine has 
been. And then I thought it had come 
at last!” 

“Will you be patient while I speak 
to you, Harry ?” said the vicar, again 
taking him by the arm. They had now 
left the house and were out alone among 
the shrubs. 

“ Patient I yes ; I think I am patient. 
Nothing further can hurt me now : that’s 
one comfort.” 

“Mary bids me remind you” — Gil- 
more shuddered and shook himself 
when Mary Lowther’s name was men- 
tioned, but he did not attempt to stop 
the vicar — ^“she bids me remind you 
that when the other day she consented 
to be your wife, she did so — ” He tried 
to tell it all, but he could not. How 
could he tell the man the story which 
Mary had told to him ? 

“I understand,” said C^more. “It’s 
all of no use, and you are troubling 
yourself for nothing. She told me that 
she did not care a straw for me, but 
she accepted me.” 

“ If that was the case, you were both 
wrong.” 

“ It was the case. I don’t say who 
was wrong, but the punishment has 
come upon me only. Look here, Frank ! 
I will not take this message from you. 
I will not even give her up yet. I have 
a right, at least, to see her ; and see 




254 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


her I will. I don’t suppose you will try 
to prevent me ?” 

“She must do as she pleases, Harry, 
as long as she is in my house.” 

“ She shall see me. She is self-willed 
enough, but she shall not refuse me 
that. Be so good as to tell her, with 
my compliments, that I expect her to 
see me. A man is not going to be 
treated like this, and then not speak his 
own mind. Be good enough to tell her 
that from me. I demand an interview.” 
So saying he turned upon his heel 
and walked quickly away through the 
shrubbery. 

The vicar stood for a while to think, 
and then slowly returned to the vicar- 
age by himself. What Gilmore had 
said to him was true enough. He had, 
indeed, never been tried after that fash- 
ion. It did seem to him that his friend 
was in fact broken-hearted. Harry 
Gilmore might live on — as is the way 
with men and women who are broken- 
hearted — but life for the present, life 
for some years to come, could be to 
him only a burden. 


CHAPTER LXIII. 

THE MILLER TELLS HIS TROUBLES. 

When the vicar went on his unhappy 
mission to the squire’s house. Carry 
Brattle had been nearly two months at 
the mill. During that time both Mr. 
and Mrs. Fenwick had seen her more 
than once, and at last she had been 
persuaded to go to church with her sis- 
ter. On the previous Sunday she had 
crept through the village at Fanny’s 
side, and had taken a place provided 
for her in the dark corner of a dark 
pew, under the protection of a thick 
veil. Fanny walked with her boldly 
across the village street, as though she 
were not in any slightest degree ashamed 
of her companion, and sat by her side, 
and then convoyed her home. On the 
next Sunday the sacrament would be 
given, and this was done in preparation 
for that day. 

Things had not gone very pleasantly 
at the mill. Up ,to this moment old 


Brattle had expressed no forgiveness 
toward his daughter, had uttered no 
word of affection to her, had made no 
sign that he had again taken her to his 
bosom as his own child. He had spoken 
to her, because in the narrow confines 
of their home it was almost impossible 
that he should live in the house with 
her without doing so. Carry had grad- 
ually fallen into the way of doing her 
share of the daily work. She cooked 
and baked, and strove hard that her 
presence in the house should be found 
to be a comfort. She was useful, and 
the very fact of her utility brought her 
father into a certain state of communion 
with her; but he never addressed her 
specially, never called her by her name, 
and had not yet even acknowledged to 
his wife or to Fanny that he recognized 
her as one of the family. They had 
chosen to bring her in against his will, 
and he would not turn their guest from 
the door. It was thus that he seemed 
to regard his daughter’s presence in the 
mill-house. 

Under this treatment Carry was be- 
coming restive and impatient. On such 
an occasion as that of going to church, 
and exposing herself to the eyes of those 
who had known her as an innocent, 
laughing, saucy girl, she could not but 
be humble, quiet and awestruck ; but 
at home she was beginning again grad- 
ually to assert her own character. “ If 
father wort’t speak to me. I’d better go,” 
she said to Fanny. 

“And where will you go to. Carry?” 

“ I dun’ know : into the mill-pond 
would be best for them as belongs to 
me. I suppose there ain’t anybody as ’d 
have me.” 

“ Nobody can have you as will love 
you as we do. Carry.” 

“Why won’t father come round and 
speak to me ? You can’t tell what' it is 
to have him looking at one that way. 
I sometimes feels like getting up and 
telling him to turn me out if he won’t 
speak a word to me.” But Fanny had 
softened her and encouraged her, bid- 
ding her wait still again, explaining the 
sorrow that weighed upon their father’s 
heart as well as she could without say- 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


255 


ing a single cruel word as to Carry’s 
past life. Fanny’s task was not easy, 
and it was made the harder by their 
mother’s special tenderness toward 
Carry. “The less she says and the 
more she does, the better for her,’’ said 
Fanny to her mother. “You shouldn’t 
let her talk about father.’’ Mrs. Brattle 
did not attempt to argue the matter with 
her elder daughter, but she found it to 
be quite out of her power to restrain 
Carry’s talking. 

During these two months old Brattle 
had not even seen either his landlord or 
the vicar. They had both^'been at the 
mill, but the miller had kept himself up 
among his grist, and had not conde- 
scended to come down to them. Nor 
had he even, since Carry’s return, been 
seen in Bullhampton, or even up on the 
high road leading to it. He held no 
communion with men other than was 
absolutely necessary for his business, 
feeling himself to be degraded, not so 
much by his daughter’s fall as by his 
concession to his fallen daughter. He 
would sit out in the porch of an evening 
and smoke his pipe ; but if he heard a 
footstep on the lane he would retreat, 
and cross the plank and get among the 
wheels of his mill, or out into the orch- 
ard. Of Sam nothing had been heard. 
He was away, it was believed in Dur- 
ham, working at some colliery engine. 
He gave no sign of himself to his mother 
or sister ; but it was understood that he 
would appear at the assizes toward the 
end of the present month, as he had 
been summoned there as a witness at 
the trial of the two men for the murder 
of Mr. Trumbull. 

And Carry also was to be a witness at 
the assizes, and, as it was believed, a 
witness much more material than her 
brother. Indeed, it was beginning to 
be thought that, after all, Sam would 
have no evidence to give. If, indeed, 
he had had nothing to do with the mur- 
der, it was not probable that any of the 
circumstances of the murder would have 
been confided to him. He had, it seemed, 
been on intimate terms with the man 
Acorn, and through Acorn had known 
Burrows and the old woman who lived 


at Py croft Common, the mother of Bur- 
rows. He had been in their company 
when they first visited Bullhampton, and 
had, as we know, invited them into the 
vicar’s garden, much to the damage of 
Mr. Burrows’ shoulder-blade ; but it was 
believed that beyond this he could say 
nothing as to the murder. But Carry 
Brattle was presumed to have a closer 
knowledge of at least one of the men. 
She had now confessed to her sister 
that, after leaving Bullhampton, she 
had consented to become Acorn’s wife. 
She had known then but little of his 
mode of life or past history, but he was 
young, good-looking, fairly well dressed, 
and had promised to marry her. By 
him she was taken to the cottage on 
Pycroft Common, and by him she had 
certainly been visited on the morning 
after the murder. He had visited her 
and given her money ; and since that, 
according to her own story, she had 
neither seen him nor heard from him. 
She had never cared for him, she told 
her sister; but what was that to one 
such as her, as long as he would make 
her an honest woman ? All this was 
repeated by Fanny Brattle to Mrs. Fen- 
wick ; and now the assizes were at hand, 
and how was Carry to demean herself 
there ? Who would take her ? Who 
would stand near her and support her, 
and save her from falling into that 
abyss of self-abasement, and almost of 
self-annihilation, which would be her 
doom, unless there were some one there 
to give her strength and aid ? 

“ I would not go to Salisbury at all 
during the assizes, if I were you,’’ Mrs. 
Fenwick had said to her husband. The 
vicar understood thoroughly what was 
meant. Because of the evil things 
which had been said of him by that 
stupid old marquis whom he had been 
cheated into forgiving, he was not to be 
allowed to give a helping hand to his 
parishioner ! Nevertheless, he acknow- 
ledged his wife’s wisdom — tacitly, as 
is fitting when such acknowledgments 
have to be made — and he contented 
himself with endeavoring to find for her 
some other escort. It had been hoped 
from day to day that the miller would 


256 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


yield, that he would embrace poor Car- 
ry, and promise her that she should 
again be to him as a daughter. If this 
could be brought about, then — so 
thought the vicar and Fanny too — the 
old man would steel himself to bear the 
eyes of the whole county, and would ac- 
company the girl himself. But now the 
day was coming on, and Brattle seemed 
to be as far from yielding as ever. 
Fanny had dropped a word or two in 
his hearing about the assizes, but he 
had only glowered at her, taking no 
other notice whatever of her hints. 

When the vicar left his friend Gil- 
more, as has been told in the last chap- 
ter, he did not return to the vicarage 
across the fields, but took the carriage- 
road down to the lodge, and from thence 
crossed the stile that led into the path 
down to the mill. This was on the 1 5th 
of August, a Wednesday, and Carry 
was summoned to be at Salisbury on 
that day week. As the day drew near 
she became very nervous. At the vicar’s 
instance, Fanny had written to her 
brother George, asking him whether he 
would be good to his poor sister and 
take her under his charge. He had 
written back — or rather his wife had 
written for him — sending Carry a note 
for twenty pounds as a present, but de- 
clining, on the score of his own chil- 
dren, to be seen with her in Salisbury 
on the occasion. “ I shall go with her 
myself, Mr. Fenwick,” Fanny had said 
to the vicar: “it’ll just be better than 
nobody at all to be along with her.” 
The vicar was now going down to the 
mill to give his assent to this. He 
could see nothing better. Fanny, at 
any rate, would be firm, would not be 
prevented by false shame from being a 
very sister to her sister, and would per- 
haps be admitted where a brother’s at- 
tendance might be refused. He had 
promised to see the women at the mill 
as early in the week as he could, and 
now he went thither intent on giving 
them advice as to their proceedings at 
Salisbury. It would doubtless be ne- 
cessary that they should sleep there, and 
he hoped that they might be accom- 
modated by Mrs. Stiggs. 


As he stepped out from the field-path 
on to the lane, almost immediately in 
front of the mill he came directly upon 
the miller. It was between twelve and 
one o’clock, and old Brattle was wan- 
dering about for a minute or two wait- 
ing for his dinner. The two men met 
so that it was impossible that they should 
not speak ; and on this occasion the 
miller did not seem to avoid his visitor. 
“Muster Fenwick,” said he, as he took 
the vicar’s hand, “ I am bound to say 
as I’m much obliged to ye for all ye 
have done for that poor lass in there.” 

“Don’t ^y a word about that, Mr. 
Brattle.” 

“But I must say a word. There’s 
money owing, as I knOws. There was 
ten shilling a week for her keep all 
that time she was at Salsbry yonder.” 

“I will not hear a word as to any 
money.” 

“Her brother George has sent her a 
gift. Muster Fenwick — ^twenty pound.” 

“ I am very glad to hear it.” 

“George is a well-to-do man, they tell 
me,” continued the father, “and can 
afford to part with his money. But he 
won’t come forward to help the girl any 
other gait. I’ll thank you just to take 
what’s due. Muster Fenwick, and you 
can give her sister the change. Our 
Fanny has got the note as George sent.” 

Then there was a dispute about the 
money, as a matter of course. Fen- 
wick swore that nothing was due, and 
the miller protested that as the money 
was there, all his daughter’s expenses 
at Salisbury should be repaid. And the 
miller at last got the best of it. Fen- 
wick promised that he would look to 
his book, see how much he had paid, 
and mention the sum to Fanny at some 
future time. He positively refused to 
take the note at present, protesting that 
he had no change, and that he would 
not burden himself with the responsibil- 
ity of parrying so much money about 
with him in his pocket. Then he asked 
whether, if he went into the house, he 
would be able to say a word or two to 
the women before dinner. He had 
made up his mind that he would make 
no further attempt at reconciling the 



The Miller tells his troubles to the Parson . — [Page 256.] 












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THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


257 


father to his daughter. He had often 
declared to his wife that there could be 
nothing so hateful to a man as the con- 
stant interference of a self-constituted 
adviser. “I so often feel that I am 
making myself odious when I am tell- 
ing them to do this or that ; and then I 
ask myself what I should say if any- 
body were to come and advise me how 
to manage you and the bairns.” And 
he had told his wife more than once 
how very natural and reasonable had 
been the expression of the lady’s wrath 
at Startup when he had taken upon him- 
self to give her advice ; “ People know 
what is good for them to do well 
enough, without being dictated to by 
a clergyman !” He had repeated the 
words to himself and to his wife a dozen 
times, and talked of having them put 
up in big red letters over the fireplace 
in his own study. He had therefore 
quite determined to say never another 
word to old Brattle in reference to his 
daughter Carry. But now the miller 
himself began upon the subject : 

‘‘You can see ’em. Muster Fenwick, 
in course. It don’t make no odds about 
dinner. But I was wanting just to say 
a word to you about that poor young 
ooman there.” This he said in a slow, 
half-hesitating voice, as thbugh he could 
hardly bring himself to speak of the un- 
fortunate one to whom he alluded. The 
vicar muttered some word of assent, and 
then the miller went on : ‘‘You knows, 
of course, as how she be back here at 
the mill ?” 

‘‘ Certainly I do. I’ve seen her more 
than once.” 

‘‘Muster Fenwick, I don’t suppose as 
any one as hasn’t tried it knows what it 
is. I hopes you mayn’t never know it ; 
nor it ain’t likely. Muster Fenwick, I’d 
sooner^see her dead body stretched afore 
me — and I loved her a’most as well as 
any father ever loved his da’ter — I’d 
sooner a-see’d her brought home to the 
door stiff and stark than know her to 
be the thing she is.” His hesitation 
had now given way to emphasis, and 
he raised his hand as he spoke. The 
vicar caught it and held it in his own, 
and strove to find some word to say as 


the old man paused in his speech. But 
to Jacob Brattle it was hard for a cler- 
gyman to find any word to say on such 
an occasion. Of what use could it be 
to preach of repentance to one who be-’ 
lieved nothing ? or to tell of the oppor- 
tunity which forgiveness by an earthly 
parent might afford to the sinner of ob- 
taining lasting forgiveness elsewhere ? 
But let him have said what he might, 
the miller would not have listened. He 
was full of that which lay upon his own 
heart. ‘‘ If they only know’d what them 
as cares for ’em ’d have to bear, maybe 
they’d think a little. But it ain’t nat- 
ural they should know. Muster Fenwick, 
and one’s a’most tempted to say that a 
man’d better have no child at all.”- 

‘‘ Think of your son George, Mr. Brat- 
tle, and of Mrs. Jay.” 

‘‘What’s them to me ? He sends the 
girl a twenty-pun’ note, and I wish he’d 
ha’ kep’ it. As for t’other, she wouldn’t 
let the girl inside her door ! It’s here 
she has to come.” 

‘‘What comfort would you have, Mr. 
Brattle, without Fanny ?” 

‘‘Fanny! I’m not saying nothing 
against Fanny. Not but what she 
hadn’t no business to let the girl into 
the house in the middle of the night 
without saying a word to me.” 

‘‘Would you have had her leave her 
sister outside in the cold and damp all 
night ?” 

‘‘ Why didn’t she come and ax ? All 
the same, I ain’t a-saying nowt again 
Fanny. But, Muster Fenwick, if you 
ever come to have one foot bad o’ the 
gout, it won’t make you right to know 
that the other ain’t got it. Ye’ll have 
the pain a-gnawing of you from the bad 
foot till you clean forget the rest of your 
body. It’s so with me, I knows.” 

‘‘ What can I say to you, Mr. Brattle ? 
I do feel for you. I do, I do.” 

‘‘Not a doubt on it. Muster Fenwick. 
They all on ’em feels for me. They all 
on ’em knows as how I’m bruised and 
mangled a’most as though I’d fallen 
through into that water-wheel. There 
ain’t one in all Bull’umpton as don’t 
know as Jacob Brattle is a broken man 
along of his da’ter that is a — ” 


258 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


“Silence, Mr. Brattle! You shall not 
say it. She is not that — at any rate not 
now. Have you no knowledge that sin 
may be left behind and deserted as well 
as virtue ?” 

“ It ain’t easy to leave disgrace be- 
hind, any ways. For aught I knows, a 
girl may be made right arter a while ; 
but as for her father, nothing’ll ever 
make him right again. It’s in here. 
Muster Fenwick — in here. There’s 
things as is hard on us, but when they 
comes one can’t send ’em away just 
because they is hardest of all to bear. 
I’d ha’ put up with aught only this, and 
defied all Bull’umpton to say as it broke 
me ; but I’m about broke now. If I 
hadn’t more nor a crust at home nor a 
decent coat to my back. I’d ha’ looked 
’em all square in the face as ever I did. 
But I can’t look no man square in the 
face now ; and as for other folks’ girls, 
I can’t bear ’em near me — no how. 
They makes me think of my own.’’ 
Fenwick had now turned his back to 
the miller, in order that he might wipe 
away his tears without showing them. 
“I’m thinking of her always, Muster 
Fenwick — day and night. When the 
mill’s agoing, it’s all the same. It’s 
just as though there warn’t nothing 
else in the whole world as I minded to 
think on. I’ve been a man all my life. 
Muster Fenwick, and now I ain’t a man 
no more.” 

Our friend the vicar never before felt 
himself so utterly unable to administer 
comfort in affliction. There was noth- 
ing on which he could take hold. He 
could tell the man, no doubt, that be- 
yond all this there might be everlasting 
joy, not only for him, but for him and 
the girl together — joy which would be 
sullied by no touch of disgrace. But 
there was a stubborn strength in the 
infidelity of this old pagan which was 


utterly impervious to any adjuration on 
that side. That which he saw and knew ^ 
and felt he would believe, but he would 
believe nothing else. He knew now 
that he was wounded and sore and 
wretched, and he understood the cause. 
He knew that he must bear his misery 
to the last, and he struggled to make 
his back broad for the load. But even 
the desire for ease, which is natural to 
all men, would not make him flinch in 
his infidelity. As he would not believe 
when things went well with him, and 
when the comfort of hope for the future 
was not imperatively needed for his 
daily solace, so would he not believe 
now, when his need for such comfort 
was so pressing. 

The upshot of it all was, that the 
miller thought that he would take his 
own daughter into Salisbury, and was 
desirous of breaking the matter in this 
way to the friend of his family. The 
vicar, of course, applauded him much. 
Indeed, he applauded too much, for 
the miller turned on him and declared 
that he was by no means certain that 
he was doing right. And when the vicar 
asked him to be gentle with the girl, he 
turned upon him again : 

“Why ain’t she been gentle along of 
me ? I hates such gentility. Muster 
Fenwick. I’ll be honest with her, any 
way.” But he thought better of it be- 
fore he let the vicar go. “ I sha’n’t do 
her no hurt. Muster Fenwick. Bad as 
she has been, she’s my own flesh and 
blood still.” 

After what he had heard, Mr. Fen- 
wick declined going into the mill-house, 
and returned home without seeing Mrs. 
Brattle and her daughters. The mill- 
er’s determination should be told by 
himself ; and the vicar felt that he could 
hardly keep the secret were he /low to 
see the women. 



/ ■ . ? 


c 



PART X. 


CHAPTER LXIV. 

IF I WERE YOUR SISTER? 

M r. GILMORE in his last words to 
his friend Fenwick declared that 
he would not accept the message which 
the vicar delivered to him as the suf- 
ficient expression of Mary’s decision. 
He would see Mary Lowther herself, 
and force her to confess her own treach- 
ery face to face with him — to confess it 
or else to deny it. So much she could 
not refuse to grant him. Fenwick had 
indeed said that as long as the young 
lady was his guest she must be allowed 
to please herself as to whom she would 
see or not see. Gilmore should not be 
encouraged to force himself upon her at 
the vicarage. But the squire was quite 
sure that so much as that must be grant- 
ed to him. It was impossible that even 
Mary Lowther should refuse to see him 
after what had passed between them. 
And then, as he walked about his own 
fields, thinking of it all, he allowed him- 
self to feel a certain amount of hope 
that after all she might be made to mar- 
ry him. His love for her had not dwin- 
dled — or rather his desire to call her his 
own and to make her his wife — but it 
had taken an altered form, out of which 


all its native tenderness had been press.- 
ed by the usage to which he had been 
subjected. It was his honor rather than 
his love that he now desired to satisfy. 
All those who knew him best were 
aware that he had set his heart upon 
this marriage, and it was necessary to 
him that he should show them that he 
was not to be disappointed. Mary’s 
conduct to him from the day on which 
she had first engaged herself to him had 
been of such a kind as naturally to mar 
his tenderness, and to banish from him 
all those prettinesses of courtship in 
which he would have indulged as pleas- 
antly as any other man. She had told 
him in so many words that she intended 
to marry him without loving him, and 
on these terms he had accepted her. 
But in doing so he had unconsciously 
flattered himself that she would be bet- 
ter than her words — that as she sub- 
mitted herself to him as his affianced 
bride. she would gradually become soft 
and loving in his hands. She had, if 
possible, been harder to him even than 
her words. She had made him under- 
stand thoroughly that his presence was 
not a joy to her, and that her engage- 
ment to him was a burden on her which 
she had taken on her shoulders simply 

259 



26o 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


because the romance of her life had 
been nipped in the bud in reference 
to the man whom she did love. Still, 
he had persevered. He had set his 
heart sturdily on marrying this girl, and 
marry her he would, if, after any fash- 
ion, such marriage should come within 
his power. Mrs. Fenwick, by whose 
judgment and affection he had been 
swayed through all this matter, had told 
him again and again that such a girl as 
Mary Lowther must love her husband 
if her husband loved her and treated 
her with tenderness. “I think I can 
answer for myself,” Gilmore had once 
replied, and his friend had thoroughly 
believed in him. Trusting to the as- 
surance, he had persevered — he had 
persevered even when his trust in that 
assurance had been weakened by the 
girl’s hardness. Anything would be 
better than breaking from an engage- 
ment on which he had so long rested 
all his hopes of happiness. She was 
pledged to be his wife ; and that being 
so, he could reform his gardens, and 
decorate his house, and employ himself 
about his place with some amount of 
satisfaction. He had at least a purpose 
in his life. Then by degrees there grew 
upon him a fear that she still meant to 
escape from him, and he swore to him- 
self, without any tenderness, that this 
should not be so. Let her once be his 
wife and she should be treated with all 
consideration — with all affection, if she 
would accept it — but she should not 
make a fool of him now. Then the 
vicar had come with his message, and 
he had been simply told that the en- 
gagement between them was over ! 

Of course he would see her, and that 
at once. As soon as Fenwick had left 
him, he went with rapid steps over his 
whole place and set the men again 
upon their work. This took place on a 
Wednesday, and the men should be 
continued at their work, at any rate, till 
Saturday. He explained this clearly to 
Ambrose, his gardener, and to the fore- 
man in the house. 

”It maybe,” said he to Ambrose, 
‘‘that I shall change my mind alto- 
gether about the place, but, as I am 


still in doubt, let everything go on till 
Saturday.” 

Of course they all knew why it was 
that the conduct of the squire was so 
like the conduct of a madman. 

He sent down a note to Mary Lowther 
that evening : 

‘‘ Dear Mary : 

‘‘ I have seen Fenwick, and of course 
I must see you. Will you name an 
hour for to-morrow morning ? 

‘‘Yours, H. G.” 

When Mary read this, which she did 
as they were sitting on the lawn after 
dinner, she did not hesitate for a mo- 
ment. Hardly a word had been said 
to her by Fenwick or his wife since his 
return from the Privets. They did not 
wish to show themselves to be angry 
with her, but they found conversation 
to be almost impossible. ‘‘You have 
told him?” Mary had asked. ‘‘Yes, I 
have told him,” the vicar had replied; 
and that had been nearly all. In the 
course of the afternoon she had hinted 
to Janet Fenwick that she thought she 
had better leave Bullhampton. ‘‘Not 
quite yet, dear,” Mrs. Fenwick had 
said, and Mary had been afraid to urge 
her request. 

‘‘Shall I name eleven to-morrow?” 
she said, as she handed the squire’s 
note to Mrs. Fenwick. Mrs. Fenwick 
and the vicar both assented, and then 
she went in and wrote her answer : 

‘‘ I will be at home at the vicarage at 
eleven. M. L.” 

She would have given much to escape 
what was coming, but she had not ex- 
pected to escape it. 

The next morning after breakfast 
Fenwick himself went away. ‘‘I’ve 
had more than enough of it,” he said 
to his wife, ‘‘ and I won’t be near them.” 

Mrs. Fenwick was with her friend up 
to the moment at which the bell was 
heard at the front door. There was no 
coming up across the lawn now. 

‘‘Dear Janet,” Mary said when they 
.were alone, ‘‘how I wish that I had 
never come to trouble you here at the 
vicarage !” 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


Mrs. Fenwick was not without a feel- 
ing that much of all this unhappiness 
had come from her own persistency on 
behalf of her husband’s friend, and 
thought that some expression was due 
from her to Mary to that effect. “You 
are not to suppose that we are angry 
with you,” she said, putting her arm 
round Mary’s waist. 

“ Pray, pray do not be angry with me.” 

“The fault has been too much ours 
for that. We should have left this 
alone, and not have pressed it. We 
have meant it for the best, dear.” 

“And I have meant to do right; but, 
Janet, it is so hard to do right.” 

When the ring at the door was heard, 
Mrs. Fenwick met Harry Gilmore in the 
hall, and told him that he would find 
Mary in the drawing-room. She pressed 
his hand warmly as she looked into his 
face, but he spoke no word as he passed 
on to the room which she had just left. 
Mary was standing in the middle of the 
floor, halfway between the window ^.nd 
the door, to receive him. When she 
heard the door-bell she put her hand to 
her heart, and there she held it till he 
was approaching ; but then she dropped 
it, and stood without support, with her 
face upraised to meet him. He came 
up to her very quickly and took her by 
the hand. “Mary,” he said, “I am not 
to believe this message that has been 
sent to me. I do not believe it. I will 
not believe it. I will not accept it. It 
is out of the question — quite out of the 
question. It shall be withdrawn, and 
nothing more shall be said about it.” 

“That cannot be, Mr. Gilmore.” 

“ What cannot be ? I say that it must 
be. You cannot deny, Mary, that you 
are betrothed to me as my wife. Are 
such betrothals to be nothing? Are 
promises to go for nothing because there 
has been no ceremony ? You might as 
well come and tell me that you would 
leave me even though you were my 
wife.” 

“ But I am not your wife.” 

“ What does it mean ? Have I not 
been patient with you ? Have I been 
hard to you, or cruel ? Have you heard 
anything of me that is to my discredit?” 


261 

She shook her head eagerly. “Then 
what does it mean ? Are you aware 
that you are proposing to yourself to 
make an utter wreck of me — to send me 
adrift upon the world without a purpose 
or a hope? What have I done to ’de- 
serve such treatment ?” 

He pleaded his cause very well — bet- 
ter than she had ever heard him plead 
a cause before. He held her still by 
the hand, not with a grasp of love, but 
with a retention which implied his will 
that she should not pass away from out 
of his power. He looked her full in the 
face, and she did not quail before his 
eyes. Nevertheless, she would have 
given the world to have been elsewhere, 
and to have been free from the neces- 
sity of answering him. She had been 
fortifying herself throughout the morn- 
ing with self-expressed protests that on 
no account would she yield, whether 
she had been right before or wrong : of 
this she was convinced, that she must 
be right now to save herself from a mar- 
riage that was so distasteful to her. 

“ You have deserved nothing but good 
at my hands,” she said. 

“ And is this good that you are doing 
to me ?” 

“ Yes, certainly. It is the best that I 
know how to do now.” 

“Why is it to be done now? What 
is it that has changed you ?” 

She withdrew her hand from him, 
and waited a while before she answered. 
It was necessary that she should tell 
him all the tidings that had been con- 
veyed to her in the letter which she had 
received from her cousin Walter; but 
in order that he should perfectly under- 
stand them, and be made to know their 
force upon hersflf, she must remind 
him of the stipulation which she had 
made when she consented to her en- 
gagement. But how could she speak 
words which would seem to him to be 
spoken only to remind him of the ab- 
jectness of his submission to her? 

“ I was broken-hearted when I came 
here,” she said. 

“ And therefore you would leave me 
broken-hearted now.” 

“You^hould spare me, Mr. Gilmore. 


262 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


You remember what I told you. I loved 
my cousin Walter entirely. I did not 
hide it from you. I begged you to leave 
me because it was so. I told you that 
my heart would not change. When I 
said so, I thought that you would desist.” 

“ I am to be punished, then, for hav- 
ing been too true to you ?” 

“ I will not defend myself for accept- 
ing you at last. But you must remem- 
ber that when I did so I said that I 
should go — back — to him if he could 
take me.” 

“And you are going back to him ?” 

“ If he will have me.” 

“You can stand there and look me in 
the face and tell me that you are false 
as that ! You can confess to me that 
you will change like a weathercock — 
be his one day, and then mine, and his 
again the next ! You can own that you 
give yourself about, first to one man, 
and then to another, just as may suit 
you at the moment ! I would not have 
believed it of any woman. When you 
tell it me of yourself, I begin to think 
that I have been wrong all through in 
my ideas of a woman’s character.” 

The time had now come in which she 
must indeed speak up. And speech 
seemed to be easier with her now that 
he had allowed himself to express his 
anger. He had expressed more than 
his anger. He had dared to shower his 
scorn upon her, and the pelting of the 
storm gave her courage : “You are un- 
just upon me, Mr. Gilmore — unjust and 
cruel. You know in your heart that I 
have not changed.” 

“Were you not betrothed to me ?” 

“ I was, but in what way ? Have I told 
you any untruth? Have I concealed 
anything? When I accepted you, did 
I not explain to you how and why it 
was so — against my own wish, against 
my own judgment — because then I had 
ceased to care what became of me. I 
do care now. I care very much.” 

“And you think that is justice to 
me ?” 

“ If you will bandy accusations with 
me, why did you accept me when I told 
you that I could not love you ? But, 
indeed, indeed, I would not s^ a word 


to displease you if you would only spare 
me. We were both wrong, but the 
wrong must now be put right. You 
would not wish to take me for your wife 
when I tell you that my heart is full of 
affection for another man. Then, when 
I yielded, I was struggling to cure that 
as a great evil. Now I welcome it as 
the sweetest blessing of my life. If I 
were your sister, what would you have 
me do ?” 

He stood silent for a moment, and 
then the color rose to his forehead as 
he answered her : “ If you were my sis- 
ter, my ears would tingle with shame 
when your name was mentioned in my 
presence.” 

The blood rushed also over her face, 
suffusing her whole countenance, fore- 
head and all, and fire flashed from her 
eyes and her lips were parted, and even 
her nostrils seemed to swell with anger. 
She looked full into his face for a sec- 
ond, and then she turned and walked 
speechless away from him. When the 
handle of the door was in her hand, she 
turned again to address him. “Mr. 
Gilmore,” she said, “I will never will- 
ingly speak to you again.” Then the 
door was opened, and closed behind 
her before a word had escaped from 
his lips. 

He knew that he had insulted her. 
He knew that he had uttered words so 
hard that it might be doubted whether, 
under any circumstances, they could be 
justified from a gentleman to a lady. 
And certainly he had not intended* to 
insult her as he was coming down to 
the vicarage. As far as any settled 
purpose had been formed in his mind, 
he had meant to force her back to her 
engagement with himself by showing 
to her how manifest would be her in- 
justice and how great her treachery if 
she persisted in leaving him. But he 
knew her character well enough to be 
aware that any word of insult addressed 
to her as a woman would create offence 
which she herself would be unable to 
quell. But his anger had got the better 
of his judgment, and when the sugges- 
tion was made to him of a sister of his 
own, he took the opportunity which was 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON, 


263 


offered to him of hitting her with all his 
force. She had felt the blow, and had 
determined that she would never en- 
counter another. 

He was left alone, and he must re- 
treat. He waited a while, thinking that 
perhaps Mrs. Fenwick or the vicar 
would come to him ; but nobody came. 
The window of the room was open, and 
it was easy for him to leave the house 
by the garden. But as he prepared to 
do so his eye caught the writing mate- 
rials on a side-table, and he sat down 
and addressed a note to Mrs. Fenwick. 
“Tell Mary,” he said, “that in a matter 
which to me is of life and death I was 
forced to speak plainly. Tell her, also, 
that if she will be my wife I know well 
that I shall never have to blush for a 
deed of hers, or for a word, or for a 
thought. — H. G.” Then he went out 
on to the lawn, and returned home by 
the path at the back of the church farm. 

He had left the vicarage, making an- 
other offer for the girl’s hand, as it were 
with his last gasp. But as he went he 
told himself that it was impossible that 
it should be accepted. Every chance 
had now gone from him, and he must 
look his condition in the face as best he 
could. It had been bad enough with 
him before, when no hope had ever 
been held out to him — when the answers 
of the girl he loved had always been 
adverse to him — ^when no one had been 
told that she was to be his bride. Even 
then the gnawing sense of disappoint- 
ment and of failure — just there, where 
only he cared for success — had been 
more than he could endure without de- 
rangement of the outer tranquillity of 
his life. Even then he had been unable 
so to live that men should not know that 
his sorrow had disturbed him. When 
he had gone to Loring, traveling with a 
forlorn hope* into the neighborhood of 
the girl he loved, he had himself been 
aware that he had lacked strength to 
control himself in his misfortune. But 
if his state then had been grievous, what 
must it be now ? It had been told to all 
the world around him that he had at last 
won his bride, and he had proceeded, as 
do jolly, thriving bridegrooms, to make 


his house ready for her reception. Doubt- 
ing nothing, he had mingled her wishes, 
her tastes, his thoughts of her with every 
action of his life. He had prepared jew- 
els for her, and decorated chambers, and 
laid out pleasure-gardens. He was a 
man simple in his own habits, and not 
given to squandering his means ; but 
now, at this one moment of his life, 
when everything was to be done for 
the delectation of her who was to be 
his life’s companion, he could afford to 
let prudence go by the board. True 
that his pleasure in doing this had 
been sorely marred by her coldness, by 
her indifference, even by her self-abne- 
gation ; but he had continued to buoy 
himself up with the idea that all would 
come right when she should be his wife. 
Now she had told him that she would 
never willingly speak to him again ; and 
he believed her. 

He went up to his house and into his 
bed-room, and there he sat thinking of 
it all. And as he thought, he heard 
the voices and the tools of the men at 
their work, and knew that things were 
being done which, for him, would never 
be of avail. He remained there for a 
couple of hours without moving. Then 
he got up and gave the housekeeper 
instructions to pack up his portman- 
teau, and the groom orders to bring his 
gig to the door. “ He was going away,” 
he said ; and his letters were to be ad- 
dressed to his club in London. That 
afternoon he drove himself into Salis- 
bury that he might catch the evening 
express train up, and that night he slept 
at a hotel in London. 


CHAPTER LXV. 

MARY LOWTHER LEAVES BULLHAMPTON. 

It was considerably past one o’clock, 
and the children’s dinner was upon the 
table in the dining-parlor, before any 
one in the vicarage had seen Mary 
Lowther since the departure of the 
squire. When she left Mr. Gilmore she 
had gone to her own room, and no one 
had disturbed her. As the children 
were being seated Fenwick returned. 


264 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


and his wife put into his hand the note 
which Gilmore had left for her. 

“What passed between them?” he 
asked in a whisper. 

His wife shook her head. “I have 
not seen her,” she said, “but he talks 
of speaking plainly, and I suppose it 
was bitter enough.” 

He can be very bitter if he’s driven 
hard,” said the vicar; “and he has 
been driven very hard,” he added, after 
a while. 

As soon as the children had eaten 
their dinner, Mrs. Fenwick went up to 
Mary’s room with the squire’s note in 
her hand. She knocked and was at 
once admitted, and she found Mary sit- 
ting at her writing-desk. 

“Will you not come to lunch, Mary?” 

“Yes, if I ought. I suppose I might 
not have a cup of tea brought up here ?” 

“You shall have whatever you like — 
here or anywhere else, as far as the vic- 
arage goes. What did he say to you 
this morning ?” 

“ It is of no use that I should tell you, 
Janet.” 

“You did not yield to him, then ?” 

“Certainly I did not. Certainly I 
never shall yield to him. Dear Janet, 
pray take that as a certainty. Let me 
make you sure, at any rate, of that. He 
must be sure of it himself.” 

“Here is his note to me, written, I 
suppose, after you left him.” Mary 
took the scrap of paper from her hand 
and read it. “ He is not sure, you see,” 
continued Mrs. Fenwick. “He has 
written to me, and I suppose that I 
must answer him.” 

“He shall certainly never have to 
blush for me as his wife,” said Mary. 
But she would not tell her friend of the 
hard words that had been said to her. 
She understood well the allusion in Mr. 
Gilmore’s note, but she would not ex- 
plain it. She had determined, as she 
thought about it in her solitude, that it 
would be better that she should never 
repeat to any one the cruel words which 
her lover had spoken to her. Doubt- 
less he had received provocation. All 
his anger, as well as all his suifering, 
had come from a constancy in his love 


for her which was unsurpassed, if not 
unequaled, in all that she had read of 
among men. He had been willing to 
accept her on conditions most humil- 
iating to himself; and had then been 
told that even with those conditions he 
was not to have her. She was bound 
to forgive him almost any offence that 
he could bestow upon her. He had 
spoken to her in his wrath words which 
she thought to be not only cruel, but 
unmanly. She had told him that she 
would never speak willingly to him 
again ; and she would keep her word. 
But she would forgive him. She was 
bound to forgive him any injury, let it 
be what it might. She would forgive 
him ; and as a sign to herself of her 
pardon she would say no word of his 
offence to her friends the Fenwicks. 
“ He shall certainly never have to blush 
for me as his wife,” she said, as she re- 
turned the note to Mrs. Fenwick. 

“You mean that you never will be his 
wife ?” 

“ Certainly I mean that.” 

“Have you quarreled with him, 
Mary?” 

“Quarreled? How am I to answer 
that ? It will be better that we should 
not meet again. Of course our inter- 
view could not be pleasant for either 
of us. I do not wish him to think that 
there has been a quarrel.” 

“No man ever did a woman more 
honor than he has done to you.” 

“Dearest Janet, let it be dropped — 
pray let it be dropped. I am sure you 
believe me now when I say that it can 
do no good. I am writing to my aunt 
this moment to tell her that I will re- 
turn. What day shall I name ?” 

“ Have you written to your cousin ?” 

“ No, I have not written to my cousin. 
I have not been able to get through it 
all, Janet, quite so easily as that.” 

“ I suppose you had better go now.” 

“Yes, I must go now. I should be a 
thorn in his side if I were to remain 
here.” 

“He will not remain, Mary.” 

“ He shall have the choice as far as I 
am concerned. You must let him know 
at once that I am going. I think I will 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


265 


say Saturday — the day after to-morrow. 
I could hardly get away to-morrow.” 

“ Certainly not. Why should you ?” 

“Yet I am bound to hurry myself to 
release him. And, Janet, will you give 
him these ? They are all here — the 
rubies and all. Ah me ! he touched me 
that day.” 

“ How like a gentleman he has be- 
haved always !” 

“ It was not that I cared for the stupid 
stones. You know that I care nothing 
for anything of the kind. But there 
was a sort of trust in it — a desire to 
show me that everything should be 
mine — which would have made me love 
him if it had been possible.” 

“ I would give one hand that you had 
never seen your cousin.” 

“And I will give one hand because I 
have,” said Mary, stretching out her 
right arm. “Nay, I will give both: I 
will give all, because, having seen him, 
he is what he is to me. But, Janet, 
when you return to him these things 
say a gentle word from me. I have 
cost him money, I fear.” 

“ He will think but little of that. He 
would have given you willingly the last 
acre of his land, had you wanted it.” 

“ But I did not want it : that was the 
thing. And all these have been altered, 
as they would not have been altered 
but for me.. I do repent that I have 
brought all this trouble upon him. I 
cannot do rrtore now than ask you to 
say so when you restore to him his 
property.” 

“He will probably pitch them into 
the cart-ruts. Indeed, I will not give 
them to him. I will simply tell him 
that they are in my hands, and Frank 
shall have them locked up at the bank- 
er’s. Well ! I suppose I had better go 
down and write him a line.” 

“And I will name Saturday to my 
aunt,” said Mary. 

Mrs. Fenwick immediately went to 
her desk and wrote to her friend : 

“ Dear Harry : 

• “ I am sure it is of no use. Knowing 

how persistent is your constancy, I 
would not say so were I not quite, quite 


certain. She goes to Loring on Satur- 
day. Will it not be better that you 
should come to us for a while after she 
has left us ? You will be less desolate 
with Frank than you would be alone. 

“ Ever yours, 

“Janet Fenwick. 

“She has left your jewels with me. 
I merely tell you this for your informa- 
tion, not to trouble you with the things 
now.” 

And then she added a second post- 
script : 

“She regrets deeply what you have 
suffered on her account, and bids me 
beg you to forgive her.” 

Thus it was settled that Mary Lowther 
should leave Bullhampton, again re- 
turning to Loring, as she had done be- 
fore, in order that she might escape 
from her suitor. In writing to her aunt 
she had thought it best to say nothing 
of Walter Marrable. She had not as 
yet written to her cousin, postponing 
that work for the following day. She 
would have postponed it longer had it 
been possible, but she felt herself to be 
bound to let him have her reply before 
he left Dunripple. She would have 
much preferred to return to Loring, to 
have put miles between herself and 
Bullhampton, before she wrote a letter 
which must contain words of happy joy. 
It would have gratified her to have 
postponed for a while all her future 
happiness, knowing that it was there 
before her, and that it would come to 
her at last. But it could not be post- 
poned. Her cousin’s letter was burn- 
ing her pocket. She already felt that 
she was treating him badly in keeping 
it by her without sending him the reply 
that would make him happy. She 
could not bring herself to write the let- 
ter till the other matter was absolutely 
settled ; and yet all delay was treachery 
to him, for — as she repeated to herself 
again and again — there could be no 
answer but one. She had, however, 
settled it all now. On the Saturday 
morning she would start for Loring, and 
she would write her letter on the Friday 


266 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMFTON 


in time for that day’s post. Walter 
would still be at Dunripple on the Sun- 
day, and on the Sunday morning her 
letter would reach him. She had studied 
the course of post between Bullhampton 
and her lover’s future residence, and 
knew to an hour when her letter would 
be in his hands. 

On that afternoon she could hardly 
maintain the tranquillity of her usual 
demeanor when she met the vicar be- 
fore dinner. Not a word, however, was 
said about Gilmore. Fenwick partly 
understood that he and his wife were in 
some degree responsible for the ship- 
wreck that had come, and had deter- 
mined that Mary was to be forgiven — 
at any rate by him. He and his wife 
had taken counsel together, and had 
resolved that, unless circumstances 
should demand it, they would never 
again mention the squire’s name in 
Mary Lowther’s hearing. The attempt 
had been made and had utterly failed, 
and now there must be an end of it. 
On the next morning he heard that Gil- 
more had. gone up to London, and he 
went up to the Privets to learn what he 
could from the servants there. No one 
knew more than that the squire’s letters 
were to be directed to him at his club. 
The men were still at work about the 
place, but Ambrose told him that they 
were all at sea as to what they should 
do, and appealed to him for orders. 
“If we shut off on Saturday, sir, the 
whole place’ll be a muck of mud and 
nothin’ else all winter,’’ said the gar- 
dener. The vicar suggested that, after 
all, a muck of mud outside the house 
wouldn’t do much harm. “ But master 
ain’t the man to put up with that al’ays, 
and it’ll cost twice as much to have ’em 
about the place again arter a bit.’’ This, 
however, was the least trouble. If Am- 
brose was disconsolate out of doors, the 
man who was looking after the work 
indoors was twice as much so. “ If we 
be to work on up to Saturday night,” 
he said, “and then do never a stroke 
more, we be a-doing nothing but mis- 
chief. Better leave it at once nor that, 
sir.” Then Fenwick was obliged to 
take upon himself to give certain or- 


ders. The papering of the rooms 
should be finished where the walls had 
been already disturbed, and the cor- 
nices completed and the wood-work 
painted. But as for the furniture, hang- 
ings and such like, they should be left 
till further orders should be received 
from the owner. As for the mud and 
muck in the garden, his only care was 
that the place should not be so left as to 
justify the neighbors in saying that Mr. 
Gilmore was demented. But he would 
be able to get instructions from his friend, 
or perhaps to see him, in time to save 
danger in that respect. 

In the mean time, Mary Lowther had 
gone up to her room and seated herself 
with her blotting-book and pens and 
ink. She had now before her the pleas- 
ure — or was it a task? — of answering 
her cousin’s letter. She had that letter 
in her hand, and had already read it 
twice this morning. She had thought 
that she would so well know how to 
answer it ; but, now that the pen was in 
her hand, she found that the thing to 
be done was' not so easy. How much 
must she tell him, and how should she 
tell it ? It was not that there was any- 
thing which she desired to keep back 
from him. She was willing — nay, de- 
sirous — that he should know all that 
she had said and done and thought, 
but it would have been a blessing if all 
could have been told to him by other 
agency than her own. He would not 
condemn her. Nor, as she thought of 
her own conduct back from one scene 
to another, did she condemn herself. 
Yet there was that of which she could 
not write without a feeling of shame. 
And then, how could she be happy 
when she had caused so much misery ? 
And how could she write her letter with- 
out expressing her happiness ? She 
wished that her own identity might be 
divided, so that she might rejoice over 
Walter’s love with the one moiety, and 
grieve with the other at all the trouble 
she had brought upon the man whose 
love to her had been so constant. She 
sat with the open letter in her hand, 
thinking over all this, till she told her- 
self at last that no further thinking could 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


26y 


avail her. She must bend herself over 
the table, and take the pen in her hand, 
and write the words, let them come as 
they would. 

Her letter, she thought, must be longer 
than his. He had a knack of writing 
short letters ; and then there had been 
so little for him to say. He had merely 
a single question to ask ; and although 
he had asked it more than once — as is 
the manner of people in asking such 
questions — still, a sheet of note-paper 
loosely filled had sufficed. Then she 
read it again : “ If you bid me, I will be 
with you early next week.” What if she 
told him nothing, but only bade him 
come to her ? After all, would it not be 
best to write no more than that ? Then 
she took her pen, and in three minutes 
her letter was completed : 

“ The Vicarage, Friday. 

” Dearest, dearest Walter : 

“ Do come to me as soon as you can, 
and I will never send you away again. 
I go to Loring to-morrow, and of course 
you must come there. I cannot write it 
all, but I will tell you everything when 
we meet. I am very sorry for your 
cousin Gregory, because he was so good. 

“ Always your own, Mary. 

“ But do not think that I want to hur- 
ry you. I have said come at once, but 
I do not mean that so as to interfere 
with you. You must have so many 
things to do ; and if I get one line from 
you to say that you will come, I can be 
ever so patient. I have not been happy 
once since we parted. It is easy for 
people to say that they will conquer 
their feelings, but it has seemed to me 
to be quite impossible to do it. I shall 
never try again.” 

As soon as the body of her letter was 
written, she could have continued her 
postscript for ever. It seemed to her 
then as though nothing would be more 
delightful than to let the words flow on 
with full expressions of all her love and 
happiness. To write to him was pleas- 
ant enough as long as there came on 
her no need to mention Mr. Gilmore’s 
name. 

That was to be her last evening at 
20 


Bullhampton, and though no allusion 
was made to the subject, they were all 
thinking that she could never return to 
Bullhampton again. She had been al- 
most as much at home with them as with 
her aunt at Loring ; and now she must 
leave the place for ever. But they said 
not a word, and the evening passed by 
almost as had passed all other evenings. 
The remembrance of what had taken 
place since she had been at Bullhamp- 
ton made it almost impossible to speak 
of her departure. 

In the morning she was to be again 
driven to the railway station at West- 
bury. Mr. Fenwick had work in his 
parish which would keep him at home, 
and she was to be trusted to the driving 
of the groom. ” If I were to be away 
to-morrow,” he said, as he parted from 
her that evening, “the churchwardens 
would have me up to the archdeacon, 
and the archdeacon might tell the mar- 
quis, and where should I be then ?” 
Of course she begged him not to give it 
a second thought. “Dear Mary,” he 
said, “ I should of all things have liked 
to have seen the last of you, that you 
might know that I love you as well as 
ever.” Then she burst into tears and 
kissed him, and told him that she would 
always look. to him as to a brother. 

' She called Mrs. Fenwick into her own 
room before she undressed. “ Janet, 
she said, “ dearest Janet, we are not to 
part for ever ?” 

“For ever! No, certainly. Why for 
ever ?” 

“ I shall never see you unless you will 
come to me. Promise me that if ever I 
have a house you will come to me.” 

“Of course you will have a house, 
Mary.” 

“And you will come and see me, will 
you not ? Promise that you will come 
to me. I can never come back to dear, 
dear Bullhampton.” 

“No doubt we shall meet, Mary.” 

“And you must bring the children — 
my darling Flo I How else ever shall I 
see her ? And you must write to me, 
Janet.” 

“ I will write — as often as you do, I 
don’t doubt.” 


268 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


“You must tell me how he is, Janet. 
You must not suppose that I do not care 
for his welfare because I have not loved 
him. I know that my coming here has 
been a curse to him. But I could not 
help it. Could I have helped it, Janet?” 

“ Poor fellow ! I wish it had not been 
so.” 

“ But you do not blame me — not 
much ? Oh, Janet, say that you do not 
condemn me !” 

“ I can say that with most perfect truth. 
I do not blame you. It has been most 
unfortunate, but I do not blame you. 
I am sure that you have struggled to do 
the best that you could.” 

“God bless you, my dearest, dearest 
friend ! If you could only know how 
anxious I have been not to be wrong ! 
But things have been wrong, and I 
could not put them right.” 

On the next morning they packed her 
into the little four-wheeled phaeton, and 
so she left Bullhampton. “I believe 
her to be as good a girl as ever lived,” 
said the vicar, “ but, all the same, I wish 
with all my heart that she had never 
come to Bullhampton.” 


CHAPTER LXVI. 

AT THE MILL. 

The presence of Carry Brattle was 
required in Salisbury for the trial of 
John Burrows and Lawrence Acorn on 
Wednesday, the 22d of August. Our 
vicar, who had learned that the judges 
would come into the city only late on 
the previous evening, and that the day 
following their entrance would doubt- 
less be so fully occupied with other mat- 
ters as to render it very improbable that 
the affair of the murder would then 
come up, had endeavored to get per- 
mission to postpone Carry’s journey; 
but the little men in authority are always 
stern on such points, and witnesses are 
usually treated as persons who are not 
entitled to have any views as to their 
own personal comfort or welfare. Law- 
yers, who are paid for their presence, 
may plead other engagements, and their 
pleas will be considered ; and if a wit- 


ness be a lord, it may perhaps be thought 
very hard that he should be dragged 
away from his arriusements. But the 
ordinary commonplace witness must 
simply listen and obey, at his peril. It 
was thus decided that Carry must be in 
Salisbury on the Wednesday, and remain 
there, hanging about the court, till her 
services should be wanted. Fenwick, 
who had been in Salisbury, had seen 
that accommodation should be provided 
for her and for the miller at the house 
of Mrs. Stiggs. 

The miller had decided upon going 
with his daughter. The vicar did not 
go down to the mill again, but Mrs. 
Fenwick had seen Brattle, and had 
learned that such was to be the case. 
The old man said nothing to his own 
people about it till the Monday after- 
noon, up to which time Fanny was pre- 
pafed to accompany her sister. He 
was then told, when he came in from 
the mill for his tea, that word had come 
down from the vicarage that there would 
be two bed-rooms for them at Mrs. 
Stiggs’ house. "I don’t know why there 
should be the cost of a second room,” 
said Fanny: “Carry and I won’t want 
two beds.” 

Up to this time there had been no re- 
conciliation between the miller and his 
younger daughter. Carry would ask 
her father whether she should do this or 
that, and the miller would answer her 
as a surly master will answer a servant 
whom he does not like ; but the father, 
as a father, had never spoken to the 
child, nor, up to this moment, had he 
said a word even to his wife of his in- 
tended journey to Salisbury. But now 
he was driven to speak. He had placed 
himself in the arm-chair, and was sitting 
with his hands on his knees, gazing 
into the empty fire-grate. Carry was 
standing at the open window, pulling 
the dead leaves off three or four gerani- 
ums which her mother kept there in 
pots. Fanny was passing in and out 
from the back kitchen, in which the 
water for their tea was being boiled, 
and Mrs. Brattle was in her usual place, 
with her spectacles on and a darning- 
needle in her hand. A minute was 


THE VICAR OF 

allowed to pass by before the miller an- 
swered his eldest daughter. 

“There’ll be two beds wanted,” he 
said ; “ I told Muster Fenwick as I’d go 
with the girl to Salsbry myself ; and so 
I wull.” 

Carry started so that she broke the 
flower which she was touching. Mrs. 
Brattle immediately stopped her needle 
and withdrew her spectacles from her 
nose. Fanny, who was that instant 
bringing the tea-pot out of the back 
kitchen, put it down among the tea- 
cups, and stood still to consider what 
she had heard. 

“Dear! dear! dear!” said the mother. 

“Father,” said Fanny, coming up to 
him, and just touching him with her 
hand, “’twill be best for you to go — 
much best. I am heartily glad on it, 
and so will Carry be.” 

“ I knows nowt about that,” said the 
miller, “but I mean to go, and that’s all 
about it. I ain’t a-been to Salsbry these 
fifteen year and more, and I sha’n’t be 
there never again.” 

“There’s no saying that, father,” said 
Fanny. 

“And it ain’t for no pleasure as I’m 
a-going now. Nobody’ll s’pect that of 
me. I’d liever let the millstone come 
on my foot.” 

There was nothing more said about it 
that evening — nothing more, at least, in 
the miller’s hearing. Carry and her 
sister were discussing it nearly the whole 
night. It was very soon plain to Fanny 
that Carry had heard the tidings with 
dismay. To be alone with her father 
for two, three or perhaps four days, 
seemed to her to be so terrible that she 
hardly knew how to face the misery 
and gloom of his company, in addition 
to the fears she had as to what they 
would say and do to her in the court. 
Since she had been home she had learn- 
ed almost to tremble at the sound of 
her father’s foot ; and yet she had 
known that he would not harm her, 
would hardly notice her, would not do 
more than look at her. But now, for 
three long frightful days to come, she 
would be subject to his wrath during 
every moment of her life. 


BULLHAMPTON. 269 

“Will he speak to me, Fanny, d’ye 
think ?” she asked. 

“Of course he’ll speak to you, child.” 
■* “But he hasn’t, you know — not since 
I’ve been at home ; not once — not as 
he- does to you and mother. I know he 
hates me, and wishes I was dead. And, 
Fanny, I wishes it myself every day of 
my life.” 

“He wishes nothing of the kind. 
Carry.” 

“Why don’t he say one kind word to 
me, then ? I know I’ve been bad.j But 
I ain’t a-done a single thing since I’ve 
been home as ’d ha’ made him angry if 
he seed it, or said a word as he mightn’t 
ha’ heard.” 

“ I don’t think you have, dear.” 

“Then why can’t he come round, if 
it was ever so little ? I’d sooner he’d 
beat me — that I would.” 

“ He’ll never do that. Carry. I don’t 
know as he ever laid a hand upon one 
of us since we was little things.” 

“ It ’d be better than never speaking 
to a girl. Only for you and mother. 
Fan, I’d be off again.” 

“You would not. You know you would 
not. How dare you say that ?” 

“ But why shouldn’t he say a word to 
one, so that one shouldn’t go about like 
a dead body in the house ?” 

“ Carry dear, listen to this. If you’ll 
manage well — if you’ll be good to him, 
and patient while you are with him — if 
you’ll bear with him, and yet be gentle 
when he — ” 

“ I am gentle, always — now.” 

“You are, dear ; but when he speaks, 
as he’ll have to speak when you’re all 
alone like, be very gentle. Maybe, 
Carry, when you’ve come back, he will 
be gentle with you.” 

They had ever so much more to dis- 
cuss. Would Sam be at the trial ? And 
if so, would he and his father speak to 
each other ? They had both been told 
that Sam had been summoned, and 
that the police would enforce his attend- 
ance; but they were neither of them 
sure whether he would be there in cus- 
tody or as a free man. At last they 
went to sleep, but Carry’s slumbers were 
not very sound. As has been told be- 


270 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


fore, it was the miller’s custom to be up 
every morning at five. The two girls 
would afterward rise at six, and then, 
an hour after that, Mrs. Brattle would 
be instructed that her time had come. 
On the Tuesday morning, however, the 
miller was not the first of the family to 
leave his bed. Carry crept out of hers 
by the earliest dawn of daylight with- 
out waking her sister, and put on her 
clothes stealthily. Then she made her 
way silently to the front door, which 
she opened, and stood there outside 
waiting till her father should come. 
The morning, though it was in August, 
was chill, and the time seemed to be 
very long. She had managed to look 
at the old clock as she passed, and had 
seen that it wanted a quarter to five. 
She knew that her father was never 
later than five. What if on this special 
morning he should not come, just be- 
cause she had resolved, after many in- 
ward struggles, to make one great effort 
to obtain his pardon ? 

At last he was coming. She heard 
his step in the passage, and then she 
was aware that he had stopped when 
he found the fastenings of the door un- 
loosed. She perceived too that he de- 
layed to examine the lock, as it was 
natural that he should do ; and she had 
forgotten that he would be arrested by 
the open door. Thinking of this in the 
moment of time that was allowed to 
her, she hurried forward and encoun- 
tered him. 

“Father,” she said, “it is I.” 

He was angry that she should have 
dared to unbolt the door or to withdraw 
the bars. What was she, that she should 
be trusted to open or to close the house ? 
And there came upon him some idea of 
wanton and improper conduct. Why 
was she there at that hour ? Must it be 
that he should put her again from the 
shelter of his roof? 

Carry was clever enough to perceive 
in a moment what was passing in the 
old man’s mind. “Father,” she said, 
“it was to see you. And I thought — 
perhaps — I might say it out here.” He 
believed her at once. In whatever spirit 
he 1 night accept her present effort, that 


other idea had already vanished. She 
was there that they two might be alone 
together in the fresh morning air, and 
he knew that it was so. “Father,” she 
said, looking up into his face. Then 
she fell on the ground at his feet and 
embraced his knees, and lay there sob- 
bing. She had intended to ask him for 
forgiveness, but she was not able to say 
a word. Nor did he speak for a while, 
but he stooped and raised her up ten- 
derly ; and then, when she was again 
standing by .him, he stepped on as 
though he were going to the mill with- 
out a word. But he had not rebuked 
her, and his touch had been very gen- 
tle. “Father,” she said, following him, 
“ if you could forgive me ! I know I 
have been bad, but if you could forgive 
me !” 

He went to the very door of the mill 
before he turned; and she, when she 
saw that he did not come back to her, 
paused upon the bridge. She had used 
all her eloquence. She knew no other 
words with which to move him. She 
felt that she had failed, but she could 
do no more. But he stopped again 
without entering the mill. 

“Child,” he said at last, “come here, 
then.” She ran at once to meet him. 
“I will forgive thee. There. I will 
forgive thee, and trust thou may’st be a 
better girl than thou hast been.” 

She flew to him and threw her arms 
round his neck, and kissed his face and 
breast. “Oh, father,” she said, “I will 
be good. I will try to be good. Only 
you will speak to me.” 

“Get thee into the house now. I have 
forgiven thee.” So saying he passed on 
to his morning’s work. 

Carry, running into the house, at once 
roused her sister. “Fanny,” she ex- 
claimed, “he has forgiven me at last: 
he has said that he will forgive me.” 

But to the miller’s mind and to his 
sense of justice the forgiveness thus 
spoken did not suffice. When he re- 
turned to breakfast Mrs. Brattle had, 
of course, been told of the morning’s 
work, and had rejoiced greatly. It was 
to her as though the greatest burden of 
her life had now been taken from her 



She flew to him a^id threw her arms round his neck^ and kissed his face and breast^ 
— [Page 270.] 


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THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


271 


weary back. Her girl, to her loving 
motherly heart, now that he who had in 
all things been the lord of her life had 
vouchsafed his pardon to the poor sin- 
ner, would be as pure as when she had 
played about the mill in all her girlish 
innocence. The mother had known 
that her child was still under a cloud, 
but the cloud to her had consisted in 
the father’s wrath rather than in the 
feeling of any public shame. To her a 
sin repented was a sin no more, and 
her love for her child made her sure of 
the sincerity of that repentance. But 
there could be no joy over the sinner 
in this world till the head of the house 
should again have taken her to his 
heart. When the miller came in to his 
breakfast the three women were stand- 
ing together, not without some outward 
marks of contentment. Mrs. Brattle’s 
cap was clean, and even Fanny, who 
was ever tidy and never smart, had 
managed in some way to add something 
bright to her appearance. Where is 
the woman who, when she has been 
pleased, will not show her pleasure by 
some sign in her outward garniture ? 
But still there was anxiety. “Will he 
call me Carry ?’’ the girl had asked. 
He had not done so when he pro- 
nounced her pardon at the mill door. 
Though they were standing together, 
they had not decided on any line of 
action. The pardon had been spoken, 
and they were sure that it would not be 
revoked ; but how it would operate at 
first none of them had even guessed. 

’ The miller, when he had entered the 
room and come among them, stood with 
his two hands resting on the round table, 
and thus he addressed them : “ It was a 
bad time with us when the girl, whom 
we had all loved a’most too well, for- 
got herself and us and brought us to 
shame — we who had never known 
shame afore — and became a thing so 
vile as I won’t name it. It was well- 
nigh the death 0’ me, I know.’’ 

“Oh, father!’’ exclaimed Fanny. 

“Hold your peace, Fanny, and let 
me say my say out. It was very bad 
then ; and when she come back to us 
and was took in, so that she might have 


her bit to eat under an honest roof, it 
was bad still, for she was a shame to 
us as had never been shamed afore. 
For myself I felt so, that though she 
was al’ays near me, my heart was away 
from her, and she was not one with me 
— not as her sister is one, and her moth- 
er, who never know’d a thought in her 
heart as wasn’t fit for a woman to have 
there.’’ By this time Carry was sobbing 
on her mother’s bosom, and it would 
be difficult to say whose affliction was 
the sharpest. “ But them, as falls may 
right themselves, unless they be chance- 
killed as they falls. If my child be 
sorry for her sin — ’’ 

“ Oh, father, I am sorry.’’ 

“ I will bring myself to forgive her. 
That it won’t stick here,’’ and the miller 
struck his heart violently with his open 
palm, “ I won’t be such a liar as to say. 
For there ain’t no good in a lie. But 
there shall be never a word about it 
more out o’ my mouth, and she may 
come to me again as my child.’’ 

There was a solemnity about the old 
man’ s speech which struck them all 
with so much awe that none of them 
for a while knew how to move or to 
speak. Fanny was the first to stir, and 
she came to him and put her arm 
through his and leaned her head upon 
his shoulder. 

“Get me my breakfast, girl,’’ he said 
to her. But before he had moved. Car- 
ry had thrown herself weeping on his 
bosom. “That will do,’’ he said. “That 
will do. Sit down and eat thy victuals.’’ 
Then there was not another word said, 
and the breakfast passed off in silence. 

Though the women talked of what 
had occurred throughout the day, not a 
word more dropped from the miller’s 
mouth upon the subject. When he 
came in to dinner he took his food from 
Carry’s hand and thanked her — as he 
would have thanked his elder daughter 
— but he did not call her by her name. 
Much had to be done in preparing for 
the morrow’s journey and for the days 
through which they two might be de- 
tained at the assizes. The miller had 
borrowed a cart in which he was to 
drive himself and his daughter to the 


272 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


Bullhampton road station, and when 
he went to bed he expressed his deter- 
mination of starting at nine, so as to 
catch a certain train into Salisbury. 
They had been told that it would be 
sufficient if they were in the city that 
day at one o’clock. 

On the next morning the miller was 
in his mill as usual in the morning. He 
said nothing about the work, but the 
women knew that it must in the main 
stand still. Everything could not be 
trusted to one man, and that man a 
hireling. But nothing was said of this. 
He went into his mill, and the women 
prepared his breakfast and the clean 
shirt and the tidy Sunday coat in which 
he was to travel. And Carry was ready 
dressed for the journey — so pretty, with 
her bright curls and sweet dimpled 
cheeks, but still with that look of fear 
and sorrow which the coming ordeal 
could not but produce. The miller re- 
turned, dressed himself as he was de- 
sired, and took his place at the table in 
the kitchen ; when the front door was 
again opened, and Sam Brattle stood 
among them ! 

“Father,” said he, “I’ve turned up 
just in time.” 

Of course the consternation among 
them was great, but no reference was 
made to the quarrel which had divided 
the father and son when last they had 
parted. Sam explained that he had 
come across the country from the north, 
traveling chiefly by railway, but that he 
had walked from the Swindon statmn 
to Marlborough on the preceding even- 
ing, and from thence to Bullhampton 
that morning. He had come by Bir- 
mingham and Gloucester, and thence 
to Swindon. 

“And now, mother, if you’ll give me 
a mouthful of some’at to eat, you won’t 
find that I’m above eating of it.” 

He had been summoned to Salisbury, 
he said, for that day, but nothing should 
induce him to go there till the Friday. 
He surmised that he knew a thing 
or two, and as the trial wouldn’t come 
off before Friday at the earliest, he 
wouldn’t show his face in Salisbury be- 
fore that day. He strongly urged Carry 


to be equally sagacious, and used some 
energetic arguments to the same effect 
on his father when he found that his 
father was also to be at the assizes ; but 
the miller did not like to be taught by 
his son, and declared that as the legal 
document said Wednesday, on the Wed- 
nesday his daughter should be there. 

“And what about the mill ?” asked 
Sam. The miller only shook his head. 
“Then there’s only so much more call 
for me to stay them two days,” said 
Sam. “ I’ll be at it, hammer and tongs, 
father, till it’s time for me to start o’ 
Friday. You tell ’em as how I’m com- 
ing. I’ll be there afore they want me. 
And when they’ve got me they won’t 
get much out of me, I guess.” 

To all this the miller made no reply, 
not forbidding his son to work the mill 
nor thanking him for the offer. But 
Mrs. Brattle and Fanny, who could 
. read every line in his face, knew that 
he was well pleased. 

And then there was the confusion of 
the start. Fanny, in her solicitude for 
her father, brought out a little cushion 
for his seat. “ I don’t want no cushion 
to sit on,” said he : “give it here to Car- 
ry.” It was the first time that he had 
called her by her name, and it was not 
lost on the poor girl. 


CHAPTER LXVII. 

SIR GREGORY MARRABLE HAS A HEADACHE. 

Mary Lowther, in her letter to her 
aunt, had in one line told the story of 
her rupture with Mr. Gilmore. This 
line had formed a postscript, and the 
writer had hesitated much before she 
added it. She had not intended to write 
to her aunt on this subject, but she had 
remembered at the last moment how 
much easier it would be to tell the re- 
mainder of her story on her arrival at 
Loring if so much had already been 
told beforehand. Therefore it was that 
she had added these words : “ Every- 
thing has been broken off between me 
and Mr. Gilmore — for ever.” 

This was a terrible blow upcn poor 
Miss Marrable, who, up to the moment 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON, 


273 


of her receiving that letter, thought that 
her niece was disposed of in the manner 
that had seemed most desirable to all 
her friends. Aunt Sarah loved her 
niece dearly, and by no means looked 
forward to improved happiness in her 
own old age when she should be left 
alone in the house at Uphill ; but she 
entertained the view about young wo- 
men which is usual with old women 
who have young women under their 
charge, and she thought it much best 
that this special young woman should 
get herself married. The old women 
are right in their views on this matter ; 
and the young women, who on this 
point are not often refractory, are right 
also. Miss Marrable, who entertained 
a very strong opinion on the subject 
above mentioned, was very unhappy 
when she was thus abruptly told by her 
own peculiar young woman that this 
second engagement had been broken 
off and sent to the winds. It had be- 
come a theory on the part of Mary’s 
friends that the Gilmore match was the 
proper thing for her. At last, after 
many difficulties, the Gilmore match 
had been arranged. The anxiety as to 
Mary’s future life was at an end, and 
the theory of the elders concerned with 
her welfare was to be carried out. Then 
there came a short note proclaiming her 
return home, and simply telling as a fact 
almost indifferent — in a single line — that 
all the trouble hitherto taken as to her 
own disposition had entirely been thrown 
away. “ Everything has been broken off 
between me and Mr. Gilmore.” It was 
a cruel and a heartrending postscript ! 

Poor Miss Marrable knew very well 
that she was armed with no parental 
authority. She could hold her theory 
and could advise, but she could do no 
more. She could not even scold. And 
there had been some qualm of con- 
science on her part as to Walter Mar- 
rable, now that Walter Marrable had 
been taken in hand and made much 
of by the baronet, and now, also, that 
poor Gregory had been removed from 
the path. No doubt she. Aunt Sarah, 
had done all in her power to aid the 
difficulties which had separated the two 


cousins ; and while she thought that the 
Gilmore match had been the conse- 
quence of such aiding on her part, she 
was happy enough in reflecting upon 
what she had done. Old Sir Gregory 
would not have taken Walter by the 
hand unless Walter had been free to 
marry Edith Brownlow; and though 
she could not quite resolve that the 
death of the younger Gregory had been 
part of the family arrangement due to 
the happy policy of the elder Marrables 
generally, still she was quite sure that 
Walter’s present position at Dunripple 
had come entirely from the favor with 
which he had regarded the baronet’s 
wishes as to Edith. Mary was provided 
for with the squire, who was in imme- 
diate possession, and Walter with his 
bride would become as it were the eldest 
son of Dunripple. It was all as com- 
fortable as could be till there came this 
unfortunate postscript. 

The letter reached her on Friday, 
and on Saturday Mary arrived. Miss 
Marrable determined that she would 
not complain. As regarded her own 
comfort it was doubtless all for the best. 
But old women are never selfish in re- 
gard to the marriage of young women. 
That the young women belonging to 
them should be settled, and thus got rid 
of, is no doubt the great desire; but, 
whether the old woman be herself mar- 
ried or a spinster, the desire is founded 
on an adamantine confidence that mar- 
riage is the most proper and the hap- 
piest thing for the young woman. The 
belief is so thorough that the woman 
would cease to be a woman — would 
already have become a brute — who 
would desire to keep any girl belonging 
to her out of matrimony for the sake of 
companionship to herself. But no wo- 
man does so desire in regard to those 
who are dear and near to her. A de- 
pendant distant in blood, or a paid as- 
sistant, may find here and there a want 
of the true feminine sympathy, but in 
regard to a daughter, or one held as a 
daughter, it is never wanting. ‘‘As the 
pelican loveth her young do I love thee ; 
and therefore will I give thee away in 
marriage to some one strong enough to 


274 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


hold thee, even though my heartstrings 
be torn asunder by the parting.” Such 
is always the heart’s declaration of the 
mother respecting her daughter. The 
matchmaking of mothers is the natural 
result of mother’s love, for the ambition 
of one woman for another is never other 
than this — that the one loved by her 
shall be given to a man to be loved 
more worthily. Poor Aunt Sarah, con- 
sidering of these things during those 
two lonely days, came to the conclu- 
sion that if ever Mary were to be so 
loved 'again that she might be given 
away, a long time might first elapse ; 
and then she was aware that such gifts 
given late lose much of their value, and 
have to be given cheaply. 

Mary herself, as she was driven slow- 
ly up the hill to her aunt’s door, did not 
share her aunt’s melancholy. To be 
returned as a bad shilling, which has 
been presented over the counter and 
found to be bad, must be very disagree- 
able to a young woman’s feelings. That 
was not the case with Mary Lowther. 
She had, no doubt, a great sorrow at 
heart. She had created a shipwreck 
which she did regret most bitterly. But 
the sorrow and the regret were not 
humiliating, as they would have been 
had they been caused by failure on her 
own part. And then she had behind 
her the strong comfort of her own rock, 
of which nothing should now rob her — 
which should be a rock for rest and 
safety, and not a rock for shipwreck — 
and as to the disposition of which Aunt 
Sarah’s present ideas were so very 
erroneous. 

It was impossible that the first even- 
ing should pass without a word or two 
about poor Gilmore. Mary knew well 
enough that she had told her aunt noth- 
ing of her renewed engagement with 
her cousin, but she could not bring her- 
self at once to utter a song of triumph, 
as she would have done had she blurted 
out all her story. Not a word was said 
about either lover till they were seated 
together in the evening. ‘‘What you 
tell me about Mr. Gilmore has made 
me so unhappy,” said Miss Marrable, 
sadly. 


‘‘ It could not be helped, Aunt Sarah. 
I tried my best, but it could not be 
helped. Of course I have been very, 
very unhappy myself.” 

‘‘ I don’t pretend to understand it.” 

‘‘And yet it is so easily understood,” 
said Mary, pleading hard for herself. 
‘‘ I did not love him, and — ” 

‘‘But you had accepted him, Mary.” 

‘‘ I know I had. It is so natural that 
you should think that I have behaved 
badly.” 

‘‘ I have not said so, my dear.” 

‘‘ I know that. Aunt Sarah ; but if you 
think so — and of course you do — write 
and ask Janet Fenwick. She will tell 
you everything. You know how de- 
voted she is to Mr. Gilmore. She would 
have done anything for him. But even 
she will tell you that at last I could not 
help it. When I was so very wretched 
I thought that I would do my best to 
comply with other people’s wishes. I 
got a feeling that nothing signified for 
myself. If they had told me to go into 
a convent or to be a nurse in a hospital, 
I would have gone. I had nothing to 
care for, and if I could do what I was 
told perhaps it might be best.” 

‘‘ But why did you not go on with it, 
my dear ?” 

‘‘It was impossible after Walter had 
written to me.” 

‘‘ But Walter is to marry Edith Brown- 
low.” 

‘‘No, dear aunt — no. Walter is 'to 
marry me. Don’t look like that. Aunt 
Sarah. It is true — it is, indeed.” She 
had now dragged her chair close to her 
aunt’s seat upon the sofa, so that she 
could put her hands upon her aunt’s 
knees. ‘‘All that about Miss Brownlow 
has been a fable.” 

‘‘Parson John told me that it was 
fixed.” 

‘‘ It is not fixed : the other thing is 
fixed. Parson John tells many fables. 
He is to come here.” 

‘‘ Who is to come here ?” 

‘‘Walter — of course. He is to be here 
— I don’t know how soon ; but I shall 
hear from him. Dear aunt, you must be 
good to him — indeed you must. He is 
your cousin just as much as mine.” 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


275 


“ I’m not in love with him, Mary.” 

“ But I am, Aunt Sarah. Oh dear ! 
how much I am in love with him ! It 
never changed in the least, though I 
struggled and struggled not to think of 
him. I broke his picture and burned 
it, and I would not have a scrap of his 
handwriting — I would not have near 
me anything that he had even spoken 
of. But it was no good. I could not 
get away from him for an hour. Now 
I shall never want to get away from him 
again. As for Mr. Gilmore, it would 
have come to the same thing at last, 
had I never heard another word from 
Walter Marrable. I could not have 
done it.” 

“L suppose we must submit to it,” 
said Aunt Sarah after a pause. This 
certainly was not the most exhilarating 
view which might have been taken of 
the matter as far as Mary was con- 
cerned ; but as it did not suggest any 
open opposition to her scheme, and as 
there was no refusal to see Walter when 
he should again appear at Uphill as her 
lover, she made no complaint. Miss 
Marrable went on to inquire how Sir 
Gregory would like these plans, which 
were so diametrically opposed to his 
own. As to that, Mary could say noth- 
ing. No doubt Walter would make a 
clean breast of it to Sir Gregory before 
he left Dunripple, and would be able 
to tell them what had passed when he 
came to Loring. Mary, however, did 
not forget to argue that the ground on 
which Walter Marrable stood was his 
own ground. After the death of two 
men, the youngest of whom was over 
seventy, the property would be his 
property, and could not be taken from 
him. If Sir Gregory chose to quarrel 
with him — as to the probability of which 
Mary and her aunt professed very dif- 
ferent opinions — they must wait. Wait- 
ing now would be very different from 
what it had been when their prospects 
in life had not seemed to depend in any 
degree upon the succession to the fam- 
ily property. “And I know myself bet- 
ter now than I did then,” said Mary. 
“ Though it were to be for all my life, 
I would wait.” 


On the Monday she got a letter from 
her cousin. It was very short, and 
there was not a word in it about Sir 
Gregory or Edith Brownlow. It only 
said that he was the happiest man in 
the world, and that he would be at Lor- 
ing on the following Saturday. He 
must return at once to Birmingham, 
but would certainly be at Loring on 
Saturday. He had written to his uncle 
to ask for hospitality. He did not sup- 
pose that Parson John would refuse ; 
but should this be the case he would 
put up at the Dragon. Mary might be 
quite sure that she would see him on 
Saturday. 

And on the Saturday he came. The 
parson had consented to receive him, 
but, not thinking highly of the wisdom 
of the proposed visit, had worded his 
letter rather coldly. But of that Walter 
in his present circumstances thought but 
little. He was hardly within the house 
before he had told his story. “You 
haven’t heard, I suppose,” he said, 
“that Mary and I have made it up ?” 

“ How made it up ?” 

“Well, I mean that you shall make 
us man and wife some day.” 

“But I thought you were to marry 
Edith Brownlow ?” 

“ Who told you that, sir ? I am sure 
Edith did not, nor yet her mother. But 
I believe these things are often settled 
without consulting the principals.” 

“And what does my brother say ?” 

“ Sir Gregory, you mean ?” 

“Of course I mean Sir Gregory. I 
don’t suppose you’d ask your father.” 

“ I never had the slightest intention, 
sir, of asking either one or the other. 
I don’t suppose that I am to ask his 
leave to be married, like a young girl ; 
and it isn’t likely that any objection on 
family grounds could be made to such 
a woman as Mary Lowther.” 

“You needn’t ask leave of any one, 
most noble Hector. That is a matter 
of course. You can marry the cook-maid 
to-morrow if you please. But I thought 
you meant to live at Dunripple ?” 

“So I shall — part of the year — if Sir 
Gregory likes it.” 

“And that you were to have an allow- 


276 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


ance and all that sort of thing ? Now, 
if you do marry the cook-maid — ” 

“ I am not going to marry the cook- 
maid, as you know very well.” 

“ Or if you marry any one else in op- 
position to my brother’s wishes, I don’t 
suppose it likely that he’ll bestow that 
which he intended to give as a reward 
to you for following his wishes.” 

“ He can do as he pleases. The mo- 
ment that it was settled I told him.” 

‘‘And what did he say ?” 

‘‘He complained of headache. Sir 
Gregory very often does complain of 
headache. When I took leave of him 
he said I should hear from him.” 

‘‘Then it’s all up with Dunripple for 
you, as long as he lives. I’ve no doubt 
that since poor Gregory’s death your 
father’s interest in the property has 
been disposed of among the Jews to the 
last farthing.” 

‘‘ I shouldn’t wonder.” 

‘‘And you are just where you were, 
my boy.” 

‘‘That depends entirely upon Sir Gre- 
gory. You may be sure of this, sir — 
that I shall ask him for nothing. If 
the worst comes to the worst, I can go 
to the Jews as well as my father. I 
won’t, unless I am driven.” 

He was with Mary, of course, that 
evening, walking again' along the banks 
of the Lurwell, as they had first done 
now nearly twelve months since. Then 
the autumn had begun, and now the 
last of the summer months was near its 
close. How very much had happened 
to her, or had seemed to happen, dur- 
ing the interval ! At that time she had 
thrice declined Harry Gilmore’s suit, 
but she had done so without any weight 
on her own conscience. Her friends 
had wished her to marry the man, and 
therefore she had been troubled; but 
the trouble had lain light upon her, and 
as she looked back at it all she felt that 
at that time there had been something 
of triumph at her heart. A girl when 
she is courted knows at any rate that 
she is thought worthy of courtship, and 
in this instance she had been at least 
courted worthily. Since then a whole 
world of trouble had come upon her 


from that source. She had been driven 
hither and thither, first by love and then 
by a false idea of duty, till she had 
come almost to shipwreck. And in her 
tossing she had gone against another 
barque, which, for aught she knew, 
might even yet go down from the effects 
of the collision. She could not be all 
happy, even though she were again 
leaning on Walter Marrable’s arm, or 
again sitting with it round her waist, 
beneath the shade of the trees on the 
banks of the Lurwell. 

‘‘Then we must wait, and this time 
we must be patient,” she said, when he 
told her of poor Sir Gregory’s headache. 

‘‘ I cannot ask him for anything,” 
said Walter. 

‘‘ Of course not. Do not ask anybody 
for anything, but just wait. I have quite 
made up my mind that foiJ;y-five for the 
gentleman and thirty-five for the lady 
is quite time enough for marrying.” 

‘‘ The grapes are sour,” said Walter. 

‘‘They are not sour at all, sir,” said 
Mary. 

‘‘I was speaking of my own grapes, as 
I look at them when I use that argument 
for my own comfort. The worst of it 
is, that when we know that the grapes 
are not sour — that they are the sweetest 
grapes in the world — the argument is 
of no use. I won’t tell any lies about 
it — to myself or anybody else. I want 
my grapes at once. 

‘‘And so do I,” said Mary, eagerly — 
‘‘of course I do. I am not going to 
make any pretence with you. Of course 
I want them at once. But I have learn- 
ed to know that they are precious enough 
to be worth the waiting for. I made a 
fool of myself once, but I shall not do it 
again, let Sir Gregory make himself ever 
so disagreeable.” 

This was all very pleasant for Captain 
Marrable. Ah yes ! what other moment 
in a man’s life is at all equal to that in 
which he is being flattered to the top 
of his bent by the love of the woman he 
loves ? To be flattered by the love of 
a woman whom he does not love is 
almost equally unpleasant, if the man 
be anything of a man. But at the pres- 
ent moment our captain was supremely 


THE VIC4R OF BULLHAMPTON. 


277 


happy. His Thais was telling him that 
he was indeed her king, and should he 
not take the goods with which the gods 
provided him ? To have been robbed 
of his all by a father, and to have an 
uncle who would have a headache in- 
stead of making settlements — these in- 
deed were drawbacks, but the pleasure 
was so sweet that even such drawbacks 
as these could hardly sully his bliss. 
“ If you knew what your letter was. to 
me!” she said as she leaned against his 
shoulder. His father and his uncle and 
all the Marrables on the earth might do 
their worst, they could not rob the pres- 
ent hour of its joy. 


CHAPTER LXVIII. 

THE SQUIRE IS VERY OBSTINATE. 

Mr. Gilmore left his own home on 
a Thursday afternoon, and on the Mon- 
day, when the vicar again visited the 
Privets, nothing had been heard of him. 
Money had been left with the bailiff for 
the Saturday wages of the men working 
about the place, but no provision for 
anything had been made beyond that. 
The Sunday had been wet from morn- 
ing to night, and nothing could possibly 
be more disconsolate than the aspect 
of things round the house, or more dis- 
reputable if they were to be left in their 
present condition. The barrows and 
the planks and the pickaxes had been 
taken away ; which things, though they 
are not in themselves beautiful, are safe- 
guards against the ill effects of ugliness, 
as they inform the eyes why it is that 
such disorder lies around. There was 
the disorder at the Privets now without 
any such instruction to the eye. Pits 
were full of muddy water, and half- 
formed paths had become the beds of 
stagnant pools. The vicar then went 
into the house, and though there were 
still a workman and a boy who were 
listlessly pulling about some rolls of 
paper, there were ample signs that mis- 
fortune had come and that neglect was 
the consequen,ce. ‘‘And all this,” said 
Fenwick to himself, ‘‘because the man 
cannot get the idea of a certain woman 


out of his head 1” Then he thought of 
himself and his own character, and 
asked himself whether, in any position 
of life, he could have been thus over- 
ruled to misery by circumstances alto- 
gether outside himself. Misfortunes 
might come which would be very 
heavy : his wife or children might die, 
or he might become a pauper, or sub- 
ject to some crushing disease. But Gil- 
more’s trouble had not fallen upon him 
from the hands of Providence. He had 
set his heart upon the gaining of a thing, 
and was now absolutely broken-hearted 
because he could not have it. And the 
thing was a woman. Fenwick admitted 
to himself that the thing itself was the 
most worthy for which a man can strug- 
gle, but would not admit that even in 
his search for that a man should allow 
his heart to give way or his strength to 
be broken down. 

He went up to the house again on the 
Wednesday, and again on the Thurs- 
day, but nothing had been .heard from 
the squire. The bailiff was very un- 
happy. Even though there might come 
a cheque on the Saturday morning, 
which both Fenwick and the bailiff 
thought to be probable, still there would 
be grave difficulties. 

‘‘ Here’ll be the first of September on 
us afore we know where we are,” said 
the bailiff; ‘‘and is we to go on with 
the horses ?” 

For the squire was of all men the 
most regular, and began to get his 
horses into condition on the first of 
September as regularly as he began to 
shoot partridges. The vicar went home, 
and then made up his mind that he wauld 
go up to London after his friend. He 
must provide for his next Sunday’s 
duty, but he could do that out of a 
neighboring parish, and he would start 
on the morrow. He arranged the mat- 
ter with his wife and with his^friend’s 
curate, and on the Friday he started. 

He drove himself into Salisbury, in- 
stead of to the Bullhampton road sta- 
tion, in order that he might travel by 
the express train. That, at least, was 
the reason which he gave to himself 
and to his wife. But there was present 


278 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


to his mind the idea that he might look 
into the court and see how the trial was 
going on. Poor Carry Brattle would 
have a bad time of it beneath a lawyer’s 
claws. Such a one as Carry — of the 
evil of whose past life there was no 
doubt, and who would appear as a wit- 
ness against a man whom she had once 
been engaged to marry — would certain- 
ly meet with no mercy from a cross-ex- 
amining barrister. The broad land- 
marks between the respectable and the 
disreputable may guide the tone of a 
lawyer somewhat when he has a wit- 
ness in his power ; but the finer lines 
which separate that which is at the mo- 
ment good and true from that which 
is false and bad cannot be discerned 
amidst the turmoil of a trial, unless the 
eyes and the ears and the inner touch 
of him who has the handling of the vic- 
tim be of a quality more than ordinarily 
high. 

The vicar drove himself over to Salis- 
bury, and had an hour there for stroll- 
ing into the court. He had heard on 
the previous day that the case would be 
brought on the first thing on the Friday, 
and it was half-past eleven when he 
made his way in through the crowd. 
The train by which he was to be taken 
on to London did not start till half-past 
twelve. At that moment the court was 
occupied in deciding whether a certain 
tradesman living at Devizes should or 
should not be on the jury. The man 
himself objected that, being a butcher, 
he was, by reason of the second nature 
acquired in his business, too cruel and 
bloody-minded to be entrusted with an 
affair of life and death. To a proposition 
in itself so reasonable no direct answer 
was made ; but it was argued with great 
power on behalf of the Crown, which 
seemed to think at the time that the 
whole case depended on getting this 
one particular man into the jury-box, 
that the recalcitrant juryman was not 
in truth a butcher — that he was only a 
dealer in meat, and that though the 
stain of blood descended, the cruelty 
did not. Fenwick remained there till 
he heard the case given against the 
pseudo-butcher, and then retired from 


the court. He had, however,, just seen 
Carry Brattle and her father seated side 
by side on a bench in a little outside 
room appropriated to the witnesses, and 
there had been a constable there seem- 
ing to stand on guard over them. The 
miller was sitting, leaning on his stick, 
with his eyes fixed upon the ground, 
and Carry was pale, wretched and 
draggled. Sam had not yet made his 
appearance. 

“I’m afeard, sir, he’ll be in trouble,” 
said Carry to the vicar. 

“Let ’un alone,” said the miller: 
“when they wants ’im he’ll be here. He 
know’d more about it nor I did.” 

That afternoon Fenwick went to the 
club of which he and Gilmore were both 
members, and found that his friend was 
in London. He had been so, at least, 
that morning at nine o’clock. Accord- 
ing to the porter at the club door, Mr. 
Gilmore called there every morning for 
his letters as soon as the club was 
open. He did not eat his breakfast in 
the house, nor, as far as the porter’s 
memory went, did he even enter the 
club. Fenwick had lodged himself at 
a hotel in the immediate neighborhood 
of Pall Mall, and he made up his mind 
that his only chance of catching his 
friend was to be at the steps of the club 
door when it was opened at nine o’clock. 
So he ate his dinner — very much in 
solitude, for on the 28th of August it is 
not often that the coffee-rooms of clubs 
are full — and in the evening took him- 
self to one of the theatres which were 
still open. His club had been deserted, 
and it had seemed to him that the 
streets also were empty. One old gen- 
tleman, who, together with himself, had 
employed the forces of the establish- 
ment that evening, had told him that 
there wasn’t a single soul left in Lon- 
don. He had gone to his tailor’s, and 
had found that both the tailor and the 
foreman were out of town. His publisher 
— for our vicar did a little in the way of 
light literature on socjal subjects, and 
had brought out a pretty volume in 
green and gold on .the half-profit sys- 
tem, intending to give his share to a 
certain county hospital — his publisher 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


279 


had been in the North since the 12th, 
and would not be back for three weeks. 
He found, however, a confidential young 
man who was able to tell him that the 
hospital need not increase the number 
of its wards on this occasion. He had 
dropped down to Dean’s Yard to see a 
clerical friend, but the house was shut 
up, and he could not even get an an- 
swer. He sauntered into the Abbey, 
and found them mending the organ. 
He got into a cab, and was driven hither 
and thither because all the streets were 
pulled up. He called at the War Office 
to see a young clerk, and found one old 
messenger fast asleep in his arm-chair. 
“Gone for his holiday, sir,” said the 
man in the arm-chair, speaking amidst 
his dreams, without waiting to hear the 
particular name of the young clerk who 
was wanted. And yet when he got to 
the theatre it was so full that he could 
hardly find a seat on which to sit. In 
all the world around us there is nothing 
more singular than the emptiness and 
the fullness of London. 

He was up early the next morning, 
and breakfasted before he went out, 
thinking that even should he succeed 
in catching the squire he would not be 
able to persuade the unhappy man to 
come and breakfast with him. At a 
little before nine he was in Pall Mall, 
walking up and down before the club, 
and as the clocks struck the hour he 
began to be impatient. The porter had 
said that Gilmore always came exactly 
at nine, and within two minutes after 
that hour the vicar began to feel that 
his friend was breaking an engagement 
and behaving badly to him. By ten 
minutes past, the idea had got into his 
head that all the people, in Pall Mall 
were watching him, and at the quarter 
he was angry and unhappy. He had 
just counted the seconds up to twenty 
minutes, and had begun to consider 
that it would be absurd for him to walk 
there all the day, when he saw the squire 
coming slowly along the street. He had 
been afraid to make himself comfortable 
within the club and there to wait for his 
friend’s coming, lest Gilmore should 
have escaped him, not choosing to be 


thus caught by any one ; and even now 
he had his fear lest his quarry should 
slip through his fingers. He waited till 
the squire had gone up to the porter 
and returned to the street, and then he 
crossed over and seized him by the arm. 
“Harry,” he said, “you didn’t expect to 
see me in London, did you ?” 

“Certainly not,” said the other, im- 
plying very plainly by his looks that 
the meeting had given him no special 
pleasure. 

“I came up yesterday afternoon, and 
I was at Cutcote’s the tailor’s, and 
at Messrs. Bringemout & Neversell’s. 
Bringemout has retired, but it’s Never- 
sell that does the business. And then 
I went down to see old Drybird, and I 
called on young Dozey at his office. 
But everybody is out of town. I never 
saw anything like it. I vote that we 
take to having holidays in the country, 
and all come to London and live in the 
empty houses.” 

“ I suppose you came up to look after 
me ?” said Gilmore, with a brow as 
black as a thunder-cloud. 

Fenwick perceived that he need not 
carry on any farther his lame pretences : 
“Well, I did. Come, old fellow, this 
won’t do, you know. Everything is not 
to be thrown overboard because a girl 
doesn’t know her own mind. Aren’t 
your anchors better than that ?” 

“ I haven’t an anchor left,” said Gil- 
more. 

“How can you be so weak and so 
wicked as to say so? Come, Harry, 
take a turn with me in the park. You 
may be quite sure I sha’n’t let you go, 
now I’ve got you.” 

“You’ll have to let me go,” said the 
other. 

“Not till I’ve told you my mind. 
Everybody is out of town, so I suppose 
even a parson may light a cigar down 
here. Harry, you must come back with 
me.” 

“No, I cannot.” 

“Do you mean to say that you will 
yield up all your strength, all your duty, 
all your life, and throw over every pur- 
pose of your existence, because you have 
been ill-used by a wench ? Is that your 


28 o 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


idea of manhood — of that manhood you 
have so often preached?” 

“After what I have suffered there I 
cannot bear the place.” 

“You must force yourself to bear it. 
Do you mean to say that because you 
are unhappy you will not pay your 
debts ?” 

“ I owe no man a shilling — or, if I do, 
I will pay it to-morrow.” 

“There are debts you can only settle 
by daily payments. To every man liv- 
ing on your land you owe such a debt. 
To every friend connected with you by 
name, or blood, or love, you owe such 
a debt. Do you suppose that you can 
cast yourself adrift and make yourself a 
by-word, and hurt no one but yourself? 
V^y is it that we hate a suicide ?” 

“Because he sins.” 

“Because he is a coward, and runs 
away from the burden which he ought 
to bear gallantly. He throws his load 
down on the roadside, and does not 
care who may bear it, or who may suf- 
fer because he is too poor a creature to 
struggle on ! Have you no feeling that, 
though it may be hard with you here” — 
and the vicar, as he spoke, struck his 
breast — ^“you should so carry your outer 
self that the eyes of those around you 
should see nothing of the sorrow with- 
in ? That is my idea of manliness, and 
I have ever taken you to-be a man.” 

“We work for the esteem of others 
while we desire it. I desire nothing 
now. She has so knocked me about 
that I should be a liar if I were to say 
that there is enough manhood left in me 
to bear it. I sha’n’t kill myself.” 

“No, Harry, you won’t do that.” 

“ But I shall give up the place and go 
abroad.” 

“Whom will you serve by that?” 

“ It is all very well to preach, Frank. 
Bad as I am, I could preach to you if 
there were a matter to preach about. I 
don’t know that there is anything much 
easier than preaching. But as for prac- 
ticing, you can’t do it if you have not 
got the strength. A man can’t walk if 
you take away his legs. If you break 
a bird’s wing he can’t fly, let the bird 
be ever so full of pluck. All that there 


was in me she has taken out of me. I 
could fight him, and would willingly if 
I thought there was a chance of his 
meeting me.” 

“ He would not be such a fool.” 

“ But I could not stand up and look 
at her.” 

“ She has left Bullhampton, you know.” 

“ It does not matter, Frank. There is 
the place that I was getting ready for 
her. And if I were there, you and your 
wife would always be thinking about it. 
And every fellow about the estate knows 
the whole story. It seems to me to be 
almost inconceivable that a woman 
should have done such a thing.” 

“She has not meant to act badly, 
Harry.” 

“To tell the truth, when I look back 
at it all, I blame myself more than her. 
A man should never be ass enough to 
ask any woman a second time. But I 
had got it into my head that it was a 
disgraceful thing to ask and not to have. 
It is that which kills me now. I do not 
think that I will ever again attempt 
anything, because failure is so hard to 
me to bear. At any rate, I won’t go 
back to the Privets.” This he added 
after a pause, during which the vicar 
had been thinking what new arguments 
he could bring up to urge his friend’s 
return. 

Fenwick learned that Gilmore had 
sent a cheque to his bailiff by the post 
of the preceding night. He acknow- 
ledged that in sending the cheque he had 
said no more than to bid the man pay 
what wages were due. He had not as 
yet made up his mind as to any further 
steps. As they walked round the en- 
closure of St. James’ Park together, and 
as the warmth of their old friendship pro- 
duced freedom of intercourse, Gilmore 
acknowledged a dozen wild schemes 
that had passed through his brain. 
That to which he was most wedded was 
a plan for meeting Walter Marrable 
and cudgeling him pretty well to death. 
Fenwick pointed out three or four ob- 
jections to this. In the first place, 
Marrable had committed no offence 
whatever against Gilmore. And then, 
in all probability, Marrable might be as 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


281 


good at cudgeling as the squire himself. 
And thirdly, when the cudgeling was 
over, the man who began the row would 
certainly be put into prison, and in 
atonement for that would receive no 
public sympathy. “You can’t throw 
yourself on the public pity, as a woman 
might,’’ said the vicar. 

“D the public pity!’’ said, the 

squire, who was not often driven to 
make his language forcible after that 
fashion. 

Another scheme was, that he would 
publish the whole transaction. And 
here again his friend was obliged to re- 
mind him that a man in his position 
should be reticent rather than out- 
spoken. “ You have already declared,’’ 
said the vicar, “that you can’t endure 
failure, and yet you want to make your 
failure known to all the world.’’ His 
third proposition was more absurd still. 
He would write such a letter to Mary 
Lowt'her as would cover her head with 
red-hot coals. He would tell her that 
she had made the world utterly unbear- 
able to him, and that she might have 
the Privets for herself and go and live 
there. “ I do not doubt but that such a 
letter would annoy her,” said the vicar. 

“Why should I care how much she 
is annoyed ?” 

“Just so ; but every one who saw the 
letter would know that it was pretence 
and bombast. Of course you will do 
nothing of the kind.” 

They were together pretty nearly the 
whole day. Gilmore, no doubt, would 
have avoided the vicar in the morning 
had it been possible, but now that he 
had been caught, and had been made 
to undergo his friend’s lectures, he was 
rather grateful than otherwise for some- 
thing in the shape of society. It was 
Fenwick’s desire to induce him to re- 
turn to Bullhampton. If this could not 
be done, it would no doubt be well that 
some authority should be obtained from 
him as to the management of the place. 
But this subject had not been mooted 
as yet, because Fenwick felt that if he 
once acknowledged that the runaway 
might continue to be a runaway, his 
chance of bringing the man back to his 
21 


own home would be much lessened. 
As yet, however, he had made no im- 
pression in that direction. At last they 
parted on an understanding that they 
were to breakfast together the next 
morning at Fenwick’s hotel, and then 
go to the eleven-o’clock Sunday service 
at A certain noted metropolitan church. 
At breakfast, and during the walk to 
church, Fenwick said not a word to his 
friend about Bullhampton. He talked 
of church services, of ritual, of the quiet- 
ness of a Sunday in London and of the 
Sunday occupations of three millions of 
people, not a fourth of whom attend 
divine service. He chose any subject 
other than that of which Gilmore was 
thinking. But as soon as they were out 
of church he made another attack upon 
him. “After that, Harry, don’t you 
feel like trying to do your duty ?” 

“ I feel that I can’t fly, because my 
wing is broken,” said the squire. 

They spent the whole of the afternoon 
and evening together, but no good was 
done. Gilmore, as far as he had a plan, 
intended to go abroad, travel to the 
East, or to the West, or to the South, if 
so it came about. The Privets might 
be let if any would choose to take the 
place. As far as he was concerned, his 
income from his tenants would be more 
than he wanted. “As for doing them 
any good, I never did them any good,” 
he said, as he parted from the vicar for 
the night. “If they can’t live on the 
land without my being at home, I am 
sure they won’t if I stay there.” 


CHAPTER LXIX. 

THE TRIAL. 

The miller, as he was starting from 
his house door, had called his daughter 
by her own name for the first time since 
her return home, and Carry had been 
comforted. But no further comfort 
came to her during her journey to Salis- 
bury from her father’s speech. He 
hardly spoke the whole morning, and 
when he did say a word as to any mat- 
ter on the work they had in hand, his 
voice was low and melancholy. Carry 


y 


2-82 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


knew well, as did every one at Bull- 
hampton, that her father was a man not 
much given to conversation, and she 
had not expected him to talk to her ; 
but the silence, together with the load 
at her heart as to the ordeal of her ex- 
amination, was very heavy on her. If 
she could have asked questions and re- 
ceived encouragement, she could have 
borne her position comparatively with 
ease. 

The instructions with which the miller 
was furnished required that Carry Brat- 
tle should present herself at a certain 
office in Salisbury at a certain hour on 
that Wednesday. Exactly at that hour 
she and her father were at the place 
indicated, already having visited their 
lodgings at Mrs. Stiggs’. They were 
then told that they would not be again 
wanted on that day, but that they must 
infallibly be in the court the next morn- 
ing at half-past nine. The attorney’s 
clerk whom they saw, when he learned 
that Sam Brattle was not yet in Salis- 
bury, expressed an opinion as to that 
young man’s iniquity which led Carry 
to think that he was certainly in more 
danger than either of the prisoners. As 
they left the office she suggested to her 
father that a message should be imme- 
diately sent to Bullhampton after Sam. 
“Let ’un be,’’ said the miller; and it 
was all that he did say. On that even- 
ing they retired to the interior of one 
of the bed-rooms at Trotter’s Buildings 
at four o’clock in the afternoon, and did 
not leave the house again. Anything 
more dreary than those hours could not 
be imagined. The miller, who was ac- 
customed to work hard all day and then 
to rest, did not know what to do with 
his limbs. Carry, seeing his misery, 
and thinking rather of that than her 
own, suggested to him that they should 
go out and walk round the town. “ Bide 
as thee be,’’ said the miller : “it ain’t no 
time now for showing theeself.’’ Carry 
took the rebuke without a word, but 
turned her head to hide her tears. 

And the next day was worse, because 
it was longer. Exactly at half-past nine 
they were down at the court, and there 
they hung about till half-past ten. Then 


they were told that their affair would 
not be brought on till the Friday, but 
that at half-past nine on that day it 
would undoubtedly be commenced, and 
that if Sam was not there then, it would 
go very hard with Sam. The miller, 
who was beginning to lose his respect 
for the young man from whom he re- 
ceived these cgpumunications, muttered 
something about Sam being all right. 
“You’ll find he won’t be all right if he 
isn’t here at half-past nine to-morrow,’’ 
said the young man. “There is them 
as their bark is worse than their bite,’’ 
said the miller. Then they went back 
to Trotter’s Buildings, and did not stir 
outside of Mrs. Stiggs’ house throughout 
the whole day. 

On the Friday, which was in truth to 
be the day of the trial, they were again 
in court at half-past nine ; and there, as 
we have seen, they were found two 
hour^ later, by Mr. Fenwick, waiting 
patiently while the great preliminary 
affair of the dealer in meat was being 
settled. At that hour Sam had not 
made his appearance, but between 
twelve and one he sauntered into the 
comfortless room in which Carry v^as 
still sitting with her father. The sight 
of him was a joy to poor Carry, as he 
would speak to her and tell her some- 
thing of what was going on. “ I’m 
about in time for the play, father,’’ he 
said, coming up to them. The miller 
picked up. his hat and scratched his 
head, and muttered something. But 
there had been a sparkle in his eye 
when he saw Sam. In truth, the sight 
in all the world most agreeable to the 
old man’s eyes was the figure of his 
youngest son. To the miller no Apollo 
could have, been more perfect in beauty 
and no Hercules more useful in strength. 
Carry’s sweet woman’s brightness had 
once been as dear to him, but all that 
had now passed away. 

“ Is it a-going all through ?’’ asked the 
miller, referring to the mill. 

“Running as pretty as a coach-and- 
four when I left at seven this morning,” 
said Sam. 

“And how did thee come ?” 

“ By the marrow-bone stage, as don’t 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


283 


pay no tolls — how else?” The miller 
did not express a single word of appro- 
bation, but he looked up and down at 
his son’s legs and limbs, delighted to 
think that the young man was at work 
in the mill this morning, had since that 
walked seventeen miles, and now stood 
before them showing no sign of fatigue. 

‘‘What are they a-doing on 'now, 
Sam ?” asked Carry, in a whisper. Sam 
had already been into the court, and was 
able to inform them that the ‘‘big swell 
of all was making a speech, in which 
he was telling everybody every Varsal 
thing about it. And what do you think, 
father ?” 

‘‘I don’t think nothing,” said the 
miller. 

‘‘They’ve been and found Trumbull’s 
money-box buried in old Mother Bur- 
rows’ garden at Pycroft.” Carry utter- 
ed the slightest possible scream as she 
heard this, thinking of the place which 
she had known so well. ‘‘Dash my 
buttons if they ain’t!” continued Sam. 
‘‘It’s about up with ’em now.” 

‘‘They’ll be hung — of course,” said 
the miller. 

‘‘What asses men is!” said Sam. 
‘‘To go to bury the box there! Why 
didn’t they smash it into atoms ?” 

‘‘ Them as goes crooked in big things 
is like to go crooked in little,” said the 
miller. 

At about two, Sam and Carry were 
told to go into court, and way was made 
for the old man to accompany them. 
At that moment the cross-examination 
was being continued of the man who, 
early on the Sunday morning, had seen 
the Grinder with his companion in the 
cart on the road leading toward Pycroft 
Common. A big, burly barrister, with 
a broad forehead and gray eyes, was 
questioning this witness as to the iden- 
tity of the men in the cart ; and at every 
answer that he received he turned round 
to the jury as though he would say, 
‘‘There, then, what do you think of the 
case now, when such a man as that is 
brought before you to give evidence?” 
‘‘You will swear, then, that these two 
men who are here in the dock were the 
two men you saw that morning in that 


cart ?” The witness said that he would 
so swear. ‘‘You knew them both be- 
fore, of course ?” The witness declared 
that he had never seen either of them 
before in his life. ‘‘And you expect the 
jury to believe, now that the lives of 
these men depend on their believing it, 
that after the lapse of a year you can 
identify these two men, whom you had 
never seen before, and who were at that 
time being carried along the road at the 
rate of eight or ten miles an hour?” 
The witness, who had already encoun- 
tered a good many of these questions, 
and who was inclined to be rough rather 
than timid, said that he didn’t care two- 
pence what the jury believed. It was 
simply his business to tell what he knew. 
Then the judge looked at that wicked 
witness — who had talked in this wretch- 
ed, jeering way about twopence — looked 
at him over his spectacles, and, shaking 
his head as though with pity at that 
witness’s wickedness, cautioned him as 
to the peril of his body ; making, too, a 
marked reference to the peril of his soul 
by that melancholy wagging of the head. 
Then the burly barrister with the broad 
forehead looked up beseechingly to the 
jury. Was it right that any man should 
be hung for any offence against whom 
such a witness as this was brought up 
to give testimony ? It was the manifest 
feeling of the crowd in the court that 
the witness himself ought to be hung 
immediately. ‘‘You may go down, sir,” 
said the burly barrister, giving an im- 
pression to those who looked on, but 
did not understand, that the case was 
over as far as it depended on that man’s 
evidence. The burly barrister himself 
was not so sanguine. He knew very 
well that the judge who had wagged his 
head in so melancholy a way at the in- 
iquity of a witness who had dared to 
say that he didn’t care twopence, would, 
when he was summing up, refer to the 
presence of the two prisoners in the cart 
as a thing fairly supported by evidence. 
The amount of the burly barrister’s 
achievement was simply this — that for 
the moment a sort of sympathy was 
excited on behalf of the prisoners by 
the disapprobation which was aroused 


284 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON, 


against the wicked man who hadn’t 
cared twopence. Sympathy, like elec- 
tricity, will run so quick that no man 
may stop it. If sympathy might be 
made to run through the jury-box, there 
might perchance be a man or two there 
weak enough to entertain it to the preju- 
dice of his duty on that day. The hopes 
of the burly barrister in this matter did 
not go farther than that. 

Then there was another man put for- 
ward who had seen neither of the pris- 
oners, but had seen the cart and pony 
at Pycroft Common, and had known 
that the cart and pony were for the time 
in the possession of the Grinder. He 
was questioned by the burly barrister 
about himself rather than about his evi- 
dence ; and when he had been made 
to own that he had been five times in 
prison, the burly barrister was almost 
justified in the look he gave to the jury, 
and he shook his head as though in 
sorrow that his learned friend on the 
other side should have dared to bring 
such a man as that before them as a 
witness. 

Various others were brought up and 
examined before poor Carry’s turn had 
come ; and on each occasion, as one 
after another was dismissed from the 
hands of the burly barrister, here one 
crushed and confounded, there another 
loud and triumphant, her heart was al- 
most in her throat. And yet, though 
she so dreaded the moment when it 
should come, there was a sense of 
wretched disappointment in that she 
was kept waiting. It was now between 
four and five, and whispers began to be 
rife that the Crown would not finish 
their case that day. There was much 
trouble and more amusement with the 
old woman who had been Trumbull’s 
housekeeper. She was very deaf, but 
it had been discovered that there was 
an old friendship between her and the 
Grinder’s mother, and that she had at 
one time whispered the fact of the farm- 
er’s money into the ears of Mrs. Bur- 
rows of Pycroft Common. Deaf as she 
was, she was made to admit this. Mrs. 
Burrows .was also examined, but she 
would admit nothing. She had never 


heard of the money, or of Farmer Trum- 
bull, or of the murder — not till the world 
heard of it — and she knew nothing 
about her son’s doings or comings or 
goings. No doubt she had given shel- 
ter to a young woman at the request of 
a friend of her son, the young woman 
paying her ten shillings a week for her 
board and lodging. That young woman 
was Carry Brattle. Her son and that 
young man had certainly been at her 
house together, but she could not at all 
say whether they had been there on that 
Sunday morning. Perhaps, of all who 
had been examined, Mrs. Burrows was 
the most capable witness, for the lawyer 
who examined her on behalf of the 
Crown was able to extract absolutely 
nothing from her. When she turned 
herself round with an air of satisfaction 
to face the questions of the burly bar- 
rister, she was told that he had no ques- 
tion to ask her. “ It’s all as one to me, 
sir,” said Mrs. Burrows, as she smoothed 
her apron and went down. 

And then it was poor Carry’s turn. 
When the name of Caroline Brattle was 
called she turned her eyes beseechingly 
to her father, as though hoping that he 
would accompany her in this the dread- 
ed moment of her punishment. She 
caught him . convulsively by the sleeve 
of the coat as she was partly dragged 
and partly shoved on toward the little 
box in which she was to take her stand. 
He accompanied her to the foot of the 
two or three steps which she was called 
on to ascend, but of course he could go 
no farther with her. 

“ I’ll bide nigh thee. Carry,” he said ; 
and it was the only word which he had 
spoken to comfort her that day. It did, 
however, serve to lessen her present 
misery, and added something to her 
poor stock of courage. “Your name is 
Caroline Brattle ?” “ And you were liv- 

ing on the thirty-first of last August with 
Mrs. Burrows at Pycroft Common ?” 
“ Do you remember Sunday, the thirty- 
first of August?” These, and two or 
three other questions like them, were 
asked by a young barrister in the mild- 
est tone he could assume. “Speak 
out. Miss Brattle,” he said, “and then 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


285 


there will be nothing to trouble you.” 
“Yes, sir,” she said, in answer to each 
of the questions, still almost in a 
whisper. 

Nothing to trouble her, and all the 
eyes of that cruel world around fixed 
upon her ! Nothing to trouble her, and 
every ear on the alert to hear hpr — 
young and pretty as she was — confess 
her own shame in that public court! 
Nothing to trouble her, when she would 
so willingly have died to escape the 
agony that was coming on her! For 
she knew that it would come. Though 
she had never been in a court of law 
before, and had had no one tell her 
what would happen, she knew that the 
question would be asked. She was sure 
that she would be made to say what 
she haci been before all that crowd of 
men. 

The evidence which she could give, 
though it was material, was very short. 
John Burrows and Lawrence Acorn had 
come to the cottage on Pycroft Common 
on that Sunday morning, and there she 
had seen both of them. It was day- 
light when they came, but still it was 
very early. She had not observed the 
clock, but she thought that it may have 
been about five. The men were in and 
out of the house, but they had some 
breakfast. She had risen from bed to 
help to get them their breakfast. If 
anything had been buried by them in 
the garden, she had known nothing of 
it. She had then received three sove- 
reigns from Acorn, whom she was en- 
gaged to marry. From that day to the 
present she had never seen either of 
the men. As soon as she heard of the 
suspicion against Acorn and that he had 
fled, she conceived her engagement to 
be at an end. All this she testified with 
infinite difficulty, in so low a voice that 
a man was sworn to stand by her and 
repeat her answers aloud to the jury; 
ancU then she was handed over to the 
burly barrister. 

She had been long enough in the court 
to perceive, and had been clever enough 
to learn, that this man would be her en- 
emy. Though she had been unable to 
speak aloud in answering the counsel 


for the prosecution, she had quite un- 
derstood that the man was her friend — 
that he was only putting to her those 
questions which must be asked, and 
questions which she could answer with- 
out much difficulty. But when she was 
told to attend to what the other gentle- 
man would say to her, then, indeed, her 
poor heart failed her. 

It came at once : “ My dear, I believe 
you have been indiscreet ?” The words, 
perhaps, had been chosen with some 
idea of mercy, but certainly there was 
no mercy in the tone. The man’s voice 
was loud, and there was something in 
it almost of a jeer — something which 
seemed to leave an impression on the 
hearer that there had been pleasure in 
the asking it. She struggled to make 
an answer, and the monosyllable yes 
was formed by her lips. The man who 
was acting as her mouthpiece stooped 
down his ears to her lips, and then 
shook his head. Assuredly no sound 
had come from them that could have 
reached his sense had he been ever so 
close. The burly, barrister waited in 
patience, looking now at her and now 
round at the court. “I must have an 
answer. I say that I believe you have 
been indiscreet. You know, I dare say, 
what I mean ? Yes or no will do, but I 
tnust have an answer.” She glanced 
round for an instant, trying to catch her 
father’s eye, but she could see nothing : 
everything seemed to swim before her 
except the broad face of that burly bar- 
rister. “ Has she given any answer ?” 
he asked of the mouthpiece, and the 
mouthpiece again shook his head. The 
heart of the mouthpiece was tender, and 
he was beginning to hate the burly bar- 
rister. “My dear,” said the burly bar- 
rister, “the jury must have the informa- 
tion from you.” 

Then gradually there was heard 
through the court the gurgling sounds 
of irrepressible sobs, and with them 
there came a moan from the old man, 
who was only divided from his daugh- 
ter by the few steps, which was under- 
stood by the whole crowd. The story 
of the poor girl in reference to the trial 
had been so noised about that it was 


286 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


known to all the listeners. That spark 
of sympathy of which we have said that 
its course cannot be arrested when it 
once finds its way into a crowd had 
been created, and there was hardly pres- 
ent then one, either man or woman, who 
would not have prayed that Carry Brat- 
tle might be spared if it were possible. 
There was a juryman there, a father 
with many daughters, who thought that 
it might not misbecome him to put for- 
ward such a prayer himself. 

“Perhaps it mayn’t be necessary,’’ 
said the soft-hearted juryman. 

But the burly barrister was not a man 
who liked to be taught his duty by any 
one in court, not even by a juryman, 
and his quick intellect immediately told 
him that he must seize the spark of 
sympathy in its flight. It could not be 
stopped, but it might be turned to his 
own purpose. It would not suffice for 
him now that he should simply defend 
the question he had asked. The court 
was showing its aptitude for pathos, and 
he also must be pathetic on his own 
side. He knew well enough that he 
could not arrest public opinion, which 
was going against him, by showing that 
his question was a proper question, but 
he might do so by proving at once how 
tender was his own heart. 

“It is a pain and grief to me,’’ said 
he, “to bring sorrow upon any one. 
But look at those prisoners at the bar, 
whose lives are committed to my charge, 
and know that I, as their advocate, love 
them while they are my clients as well 
as any father can love his child. I will 
spend myself for them, even though it 
may be at the risk of the harsh judg- 
ment of those around me. It is my 
duty to prove to the jury on their be- 
half that the life of this young woman 
has been such as to invalidate her tes- 
timony against them ; and that duty I 
shall do, fearless of the remarks of any 
one. Now I ask you again, Caroline 
Brattle, whether you are not one of the 
unfortunates ?’’ 

This attempt of 'the burly barrister 
was to a certain extent successful. The 
juryman who had daughters of his own 
had been put down, and the barrister 


had given, at any rate, an answer to 
the attack that had been silently made 
on him by the feeling of the court. Let 
a man be ready with a reply, be it ever 
so bad a reply, and any attack is par- 
ried. But Carry had given no answer 
to the question, and those who looked 
at her thought it very improbable that 
she would be able to do so. She had 
clutched the arm of the man who stood 
by her, and in the midst of her sobs 
was looking round with snatched, quick, 
half-completed glances for protection to 
the spot on which her father and brother 
were standing. The old man had moan- 
ed once, but after that he uttered no 
sound. He stood leaning on his stick 
with his eyes fixed upon the ground, 
quite motionless. Sam was standing 
with his hands grasping the woodwork 
before him and his bold gaze fastened 
on the barrister’s face, as though he 
were about to fly at him. The burly 
barrister saw it all, and perceived that 
more was to be gained by sparing than 
by persecuting his witness, and resolved 
to let her go. 

“I believe that will do,” he said. 
“Your silence tells all that I wish the jury 
to know. You may go down.” Then 
the man who had acted as mouthpiece 
led Carry away, delivered her up to her 
father and guided them both out of 
court. 

They went back to the room in which 
they had before been seated, and there 
they waited for Sam, who was called 
into the witness-box as they left the 
court. 

“Oh, father!” said Carry, as soon as 
the old man was again placed upon the 
bench. And she stood over him and 
put her hand upon his neck. 

“We’ve won through it, girl, and let 
that be enough,” said the miller. Then 
she sat down close by his side, and not 
another word was spoken by them till 
Sam returned. , 

Sam’s evidence was, in fact, but of 
little use. He had had dealings with 
Acorn, who had introduced him to Bur- 
rows, and had known the two men at 
the old woman’s cottage on the com- 
mon. When he was asked what these 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


287 


dealings had been, he said they were 
honest dealings. 

“About your sister’s marriage ?’’ sug- 
gested the Crown lawyer. 

“Well — yes,” said Sam. And then 
he stated that the men had come over 
to Bullhampton, and that he had ac- 
companied them as they walked raund 
Farmer Trumbull’s house. He had 
taken them into the vicar’s garden ; and 
then he gave an account of the meeting 
there with Mr. Fenwick. After that he 
had known and seen nothing of the 
men. When he had testified so far he 
was handed over to the burly barrister. 

The burly barrister tried all he knew, 
but he could make nothing of this wit- 
ness. A question was asked him, the 
true answer to which would have im- 
plied that his sister’s life had been dis- 
reputable. When this was asked, Sam 
declared that he would not say a word 
about his sister one way or the other. 
His sister had told them all she knew 
about the murder, and now he had told 
them all he knew. He protested that he 
was willing to answer any questions 
they might ask him about himself, but 
about his sister he would answer none. 
When told that the information desired 
might be got in a more injurious way 
from other sources, he became rather 
impudent. 

“ Then you may go to — other sources,” 
he said. 

He was threatened with all manner 
of pains and penalties, but he made 
nothing of these threats, and was at last 
allowed to leave the box. When his 
evidence was completed the trial was 
adjourned for another day. 

Though it was then late in the after- 
noon, the three Brattles returned home 
that night. There was a train which took 
them to the Bullhampton road station, 
and from thence they walked to the 
mill. It was a weary journey both for 
the poor girl and for the old man, but 
anything was better than delay for an- 
other night in Trotter’s Buildings. And 


then the miller was unwilling to be ab- 
sent from his mill one hour longer than 
was necessary. When there came to 
be a question whether he could walk, he 
laughed the difficulty to scorn in his 
quiet way. “Why shouldn’t I walk it ? 
Ain’t I got to ’arn my bread every 
day ?” 

It was ten o’clock when they reached 
the mill, and Mrs. Brattle, not expect- 
ing them at that hour, was in bed. But 
Fanny was up, and did what she could 
to comfort them. But no one could 
ever comfort old Brattle. He was not 
susceptible to soft influences. It may 
almost be said that he condemned him- 
self because he gave way to the daily 
luxury of a pipe. He believed in plen- 
ty of food, because food for the work- 
man is as coals to the steam-engine, as 
oats to the horse — the raw material out 
of which the motive-power of labor must 
be made. Beyond eating and working, 
a man had little to do but just to wait 
till he died. That was his theory of life 
in these his latter days ; and yet he was 
a man with keen feelings and a loving 
heart. 

But Carry was comforted when her 
sister’s arms were around her. “They 
asked me if I was bad,” she said, “ and 
I thought I should ha’ died, and I never 
answered them a word ; and at last they 
let me go.” When Fanny inquired 
whether their father had been kind to‘ 
her, she declared that he had been 
“main kind.” “But oh, Fanny, if he’d 
only say a word, it would warm one’s 
heart, wouldn’t it?” 

On the following evening news reach- 
ed Bullhampton that the Grinder had 
been convicted and sentenced to death, 
but that Lawrence Acorn had been ac- 
quitted. The judge, in his summing- 
up, had shown that certain evidence 
which applied to the Grinder had not 
applied to his comrade in the dock, and 
the jury had been willing to take any 
excuse for saving one man from the 
halter 



PART XI. 


CHAPTER LXX, 

THE FATE OF THE PUDDLEHAMITES. 

F enwick and Gilmore breakfasted 
together on the. morning that the 
former left London for Bullhampton ; 
and by that time the vicar had (assured 
himself that it would be quite impossible 
to induce his friend to go back to his 
home. “ I shall turn up after some 
years if I live,” said the squire ; “and I 
suppose I sha’n’t think so much about 
it then ; but for the present I will not 
go to the place.” 

He authorized Fenwick to do what he 
pleased about the house and the gar- 
dens, and promised to give instructions 
as to the sale of his horses. If the 
whole place were not let, the bailiff 
might, he suggested, carry on the farm 
himself. When he was urged as to his 
duty, he again answered by his illustra- 
tion of the man without a leg. “ It may 
be all very true,” he said, “that a man 
ought to walk, but if you cut off his leg 
he can’t walk.” Fenwick at last found 
that there was nothing more to be said, 
and he was constrained to take his 
leave. 

“ May I tell her that you forgive her ?” 
the vicar asked, as they were walking 

288 


together up and down the station in the 
Waterloo road. • 

“She will not care a brass farthing 
for my forgiveness,” said Gilmore. 

“You wrong her there. I am sure 
that nothing would give her so much 
comfort as such a message.” 

Gilmore walked half the length of the 
platform before he replied. 

“What is the good of telling a lie 
about it ?” he said, at last. 

“ I certainly would not tell a lie.” 

“Then I can’t say that I forgive her. 
How is a man to forgive such treatment ? 
If I said that I did you wouldn’t believe 
me. I will keep out of her way, and 
that will be better for her than forgiving 
her.” 

“ Some of your wrath, I fear, falls to 
my lot ?” said the vicar. 

“No, Frank. You and your wife have 
done the best for me all through — as far 
as you thought was best. 

“We have meant to do so.” 

“And if she has been false to me as 
no woman was ever false before, that is 
not your fault. As for the jewels, tell 
your wife to lock them up — or to throw 
them away if she likes that better. My 
brother’s wife will have them some day, 
I suppose.” Now his brother was in 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


289 


India, and his brother’s wife he had 
never seen. Then there was a pledge 
given that Gilmore would inform his 
friend by letter of his future destination ; 
and so they parted. 

This was on* Tuesday, and Fenwick 
had desired that his gig might meet him 
at the Bullhampton road station. He 
had learned by this time of the con- 
demnation of one man for the murder 
and the acquittal of the other, and was 
full of the subject when his groom was 
seated beside him. Had the Brattles 
cgme back to the mill ? And what of 
Sam ? And what did the people say 
about Acorn’s escape ? These, and 
many other questions he asked, but he 
found that his servant was so burdened 
with a matter of separate and of infi- 
nitely greater interest that he could not 
be got to give his mind to the late trial. 
He believed the Brattles were back ; he 
had seen nothing of Sam ; he didn’t 
know anything about Acorn ; — ^but the 
new chapel was going to be pulled 
down. 

“What!” exclaimed the vicar — ^“not 
at once ?” 

“So they was saying, sir, when I come 
away. And the men was at it— that is, 
standing all about. And there is to be 
no more preaching, sir. And missus 
was out on the front looking at ’em as 
I drove out of the yard.” 

Fenwick asked twenty questions, but 
could obtain no other information than 
was given in the first announcement of 
these astounding news. And as he en- 
tered the vicarage he was still asking 
questions, and the man was still endeav- 
oring to express his own conviction that 
that horrible, damnable and most heart- 
breaking red brick building would be 
demolished and carted clean away be- 
fore the end of the week. For the ser- 
vants and dependants of the vicarage 
were staunch to the interests of the 
Church Establishment, with a degree of 
fervor of which the vicar himself knew 
nothing. They hated Puddleham and 
Dissent. This groom would have liked 
nothing better than a commission to 
punch the head of Mr. Puddleham’s 
eldest son, a young man who had been 


employed in a banker’s office at War- 
minster, but had lately come home be- 
cause he had been found to have a taste 
for late hours and public-house parlors ; 
and had made himself busy on the 
question of the chapel. The maid-ser- 
vants at the vicarage looked down as 
from a mighty great height on the young 
women of Bullhampton who attended 
the chapel ; and the vicarage gardener, 
since he had found out that the chapel 
stood on glebe land, and ought there- 
fore to be placed under his hands, had 
hardly been able to keep himself off the 
ground. His proposed cure for the evil 
that had been done — as an imrnediate 
remedy before eviction and demolition 
could be carried out — was to form the 
vicarage manure-pit close against the 
chapel door, “and 'then let anybody 
touch our property who dares !” He 
had, however, been too cautious to carry 
out any such strategy as this without di- 
rect authority from the commander-in- 
chief. “ Master thinks a deal too much 
on ’em,” he had said to the groom, 
almost in disgust at the vicar’s pusil- 
lanimity. 

When Fenwick reached his own gate 
there was a crowd of men loitering 
around the chapel, and he got out from 
his gig and joined them. His eye first 
fell upon Mr. Puddleham, who was 
standing directly in front of the door, 
with his back to the building, wearing 
on his face an expression of infinite dis- 
pleasure. The vicar was desirous of as- 
suring the minister that no steps need 
be taken, at any rate for the present, 
toward removing the chapel from its 
present situation. But before he could 
speak to Mr. Puddleham he perceived 
the builder from Salisbury, who ap- 
peared to be very busy — Grimes, the 
Bullhampton tradesman, so lately dis- 
comfited, but now triumphant — Bolt, 
the elder, close at Mr. Puddleham’s el- 
bow — his own churchwarden, with one 
or two other farmers — and lastly. Lord 
St. George himself, walking in company 
with Mr. Packer, the agent. Many 
others from the village were there, so 
that there was quite a public meeting on 
the bit of ground which had been ap- 


290 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


propriated to Mr. Puddleham’s preach- 
ings. Fenwick, as soon as he saw Lord 
St. George, accosted him before he 
spoke to the others. 

“My friend Mr. Puddleham,” said he, 
“seems to have the benefit of a dis- 
tinguished congregation this morning.” 

“The last, I fear, he will ever have 
on this spot,” said the lord, as he shook 
hands with the vicar. 

“ I am very sorry to hear you say so, 
my lord. Of course, I don’t know what 
you are doing, and I can’t make Mr. 
Puddleham preach here if he be not 
willing.” 

Mr. Puddleham had now joined them. 
“I am ready and willing,” said Jie, “to 
do my duty in that sphere of life to 
which it has pleased God to call me.” 
And it was evident that he thought that 
the sphere to which he had been called 
was that special chapel opposite to the 
vicarage entrance. 

“As I was saying,” continued the 
vicar, “ I have neither the wish nor the 
power to control my neighbor ; but, as 
far as I am concerned, no step need be 
taken to displace him. I did not like 
this site for the chapel at first, but I 
have got quit of all that feeling, and Mr. 
Puddleham may preach to his heart’s 
content — as he will, no doubt to his 
hearers’ welfare — and will not annoy 
me in the least.” On hearing this, Mr. 
Puddleham pushed his hat off his fore- 
head and looked up and frowned, as 
though the levity of expression in which 
his rival indulged was altogether unbe- 
coming the solemnity of the occasion. 

“Mr. Fenwick,” said the lord, “we 
have taken advice, and we find the 
thing ought to be done, and to be done 
instantly. The leading men of the con- 
gregation are quite of that view.” 

“ They are of course unwilling to op- 
pose your noble father, my lord,” said 
the minister. 

“And to tell you the truth, Mr. Fen- 
wick,” continued Lord St. George, “you 
might be put, most unjustly, into a peck 
of troubles if we did not do this. You 
have no right to let the glebe on a 
building lease, even if you were willing, 
and high ecclesiastical authority would 


> 

call upon you at once to have the nuis- 
ance removed.” 

“Nuisance, my lord!” said Mr. Pud- 
dleham, who had seen with half an eye 
that the son was by no means worthy 
of the father. 

“ Well, yes — placed in the middle of 
the vicar’s ground. What would you 
say if Mr. Fenwick demanded leave to 
use your parlor for his vestry-room, and 
to lock up his surplice in your cup- 
board ?” 

“ I’m sure he’d try it on before he’d 
had it a day,” said the vicar, “and vei^ 
well he’d look in it;” whereupon the 
minister again raised his hat and again 
frowned. 

“The long and the short of it is,” 
continued the lord, “ that we’ve, among 
us, made a most absurd mistake, and 
the sooner we put it right the better. 
My father, feeling that our mistake has 
led to all the others, and that we have 
caused all this confusion, thinks it to be 
his duty to pull the chapel down and 
build it up on the site before proposed, 
near the cross-roads. We’ll begin at 
once, and hope to get it done by Christ- 
mas. In the mean time, Mr. Puddle- 
ham has consented to go back to the 
old chapel.” 

“Why not let him stay here till the 
other is finished ?” asked the vicar. 

“My dear sir,” replied the lord, “we 
are going to transfer the chapel, body 
and bones. If we were Yankees, we 
should know how to do it without pull- 
ing it in pieces. As it is, we’ve got to 
do it piecemeal. So now, Mr. Hick- 
body,” he continued, turning round to 
the builder from Salisbury, “you may 
go to work at once. The marquis will 
be much obliged to you if you will press 
it on.” 

“Certainly, my lord,” said Mr. Hick- 
body, taking off his hat.. “ We’ll put on 
quite a body of men, my lord, and his 
lordship’s commands shall be obeyed.” 

After which. Lord St. George and Mr. 
Fenwick withdrew together from the 
chapel and walked into the vicarage. 

“ If all that be absolutely necessary — ” 
began the vicar. 

“It is, Mr. Fenwick: we’ve made a 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


291 


mistake.” Lord St. George always spoke 
of his father as “we” when there came 
upon him the necessity of retrieving his 
father’s errors. ‘‘And our only way out 
of it is to take the bull by the horns at 
once and put the thing right. It will 
cost us about seven hundred pounds ; 
and then there is the bore of having, to 
own ourselves to be wrong. But that is 
much better than a fight.” 

‘‘ I should not have fought.” 

‘‘You would have been driven to fight. 
And then there is the one absolute fact 
— the chapel ought not to be there. 
And now I’ve one other word to say. 
Don’t you think this quarreling between 
clergyman and landlord is bad for the 
parish ?” 

‘‘Very bad indeed, Lord St. George.” 

‘‘Now I’m not going to measure out 
censure, or to say that we have been 
wrong or that you have been wrong.” 

‘‘If you do I shall defend myself,” 
said the vicar. 

‘‘Exactly so. But if bygones can be 
bygones, there need be neither offence 
nor defence.” 

‘‘ What can a clergyman think. Lord 
St. George, when the landlord of his 
parish writes letters against him to his 
bishop, maligning his private character 
and spreading reports for which there is 
not the slightest foundation ?” 

‘‘Mr. Fenwick, is that the way in 
which you let bygones be bygones ?” 

‘‘ It is very hard to say that I can for- 
get such an injury.” 

‘‘My father, at any rate, is willing to 
forget, and, as he hopes, to forgive. In 
all disputes each party of course thinks 
that he has been right. If you, for the 
sake of the parish and for the sake of 
Christian charity and good-will, are 
ready to meet him halfway, all this ill- 
will may be buried in the ground.” 

What could the vicar do ? He felt 
that he was being cunningly cheated 
out of his grievance. He would have 
had not a minute’s hesitation as to for- 
giving the marquis, had the marquis 
owned himself to be wrong. But he 
was now invited to bury the hatchet on 
even terms, and he knew that the terms 
should not be even. And he resented 


all this the more in his heart because he 
understood very well how clever and 
cunning was the son of his enemy. He 
did not like to be cheated out of his for- 
giveness. But, after all, what did it 
matter ? Would it not be enough for 
him to know, himself, that he had been 
right ? Was it not much to feel himself 
free from all pricks of conscience in the 
matter ? 

‘‘ If Lord Trowbridge is willing to let 
it all pass,” said he, ‘‘so am 1.” 

‘‘lam delighted,” said Lord St. George, 
with spirit. ‘‘ I will not come in now, 
because I have already overstayed my 
time, but I will hope that you may hear 
from my father before long in a spirit 
of kindness.” 


CHAPTER LXXI. 

THE END OF MARY LOWTHER’S STORY. 

Sir Gregory Marrable’s headache 
was not of long duration. Allusion is 
here made to that especial headache 
under the acute effects of which he had 
taken so very unpromising a farewell 
of his nephew and heir. It lasted, how- 
ever, for two or three days, during which 
he had frequent consultations with Mrs. 
Brownlow, and had one conversation 
with Edith. He was disappointed, sor- 
ry and sore at heart because the desire 
on which he had set his mind could not 
be fulfilled, but he was too weak to cling 
either to his hope or to his anger. His 
own son had gone from him, and this 
young man must be his heir and the 
owner of Dunripple. No doubt he might 
punish the young man by excluding 
him from any share of ownership for 
the present, but there would be neither 
comfort nor advantage in that. It is 
true that he might save any money that 
Walter would cost him and give it to 
Edith, but such a scheme of saving for 
such a purpose was contrary to the old 
man’s nature. He wanted to have his 
heir near him at Dunripple. He hated 
the feeling of desolation which was pre- 
sented to him by the idea of Dunripple 
without some young male Marrable at 
hand to help him. Fle desired, uncon- 


293 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


sciously, to fill up the void made by the 
death of his son with as little trouble as 
might be. And therefore he consulted 
Mrs. Brownlow. 

Mrs. Brownlow was clearly of opinion 
that he had better take his nephew with 
the encumbrance of Mary Lowther, and 
make them both welcome to the house. 
“We have all heard so much good of 
Miss Lowther, you know,” said Mrs. 
Brownlow; “and she is not at all the 
same as a stranger.” 

“That is true,” said Sir Gregory, will- 
ing to be talked over. 

“And then, you know, who can say 
whether Edith would ever have liked 
him or not ? You never can tell what 
way a young woman’s feelings will 

go-” 

On hearing this, Sir Gregory uttered 
some sound intended to express mildly 
a divergence of opinion. He did not 
doubt but what Edith would have been 
quite willing to fall in love with Walter 
had all things been conformable to her 
doing so. Mrs. Brownlow did not no- 
tice this as she continued : “At any rate, 
the poor girl would suffer dreadfully 
now if she were allowed to think that 
you should be divided from your nephew 
by your regard for her. Indeed, she 
could hardly stay at Dunripple if that 
were so.” , ' 

Mrs. Brownlow in a mild way sug- 
gested that nothing should be said to 
Edith, and Sir Gregory gave half a 
promise that he would be silent. But it 
was against his nature not to speak. 
When the moment came the temptation 
to say something that could be easily 
said, and which would produce some 
mild excitement, was always too strong 
for him. “ My dear,” he said, one even- 
ing when Edith was hovering round his 
chair, “you remember what I once said 
to you about your cousin Walter ?” 

“About Captain Marrable, uncle ?” 

“ Well — ^he is just the same as a cousin 
— it turns out that he is engaged to 
marry another cousin — Mary Lowther.” 

“She is his real cousin. Uncle Gre- 
gory.” 

“ I never saw the young lady, that I 
know of.” 


“ Nor have I, but I’ve heard so much 
about her ! And everybody says she is 
nice. I hope they’ll come and live 
here.” 

“ I don’t know yet, my dear.” 

“ He told me all about it when he was 
here.” 

“ Told you he was going to be mar- 
ried?” 

“ No, uncle, he did not tell me that 
exactly, but he said that — that — He 
told me how much he loved Mary Low- 
ther, and a great deal about her, and I 
felt sure it would come so.” 

“Then you are aware that what I had 
hinted about you and Walter — ” 

“ Don’t talk about that, Uncle Gregory. 
I knew that it was ever so unlikely, and 
I didn’t think about it. You are so good 
to me that of course I couldn’t say any- 
thing. But you may be sure he is ever 
so much in love with Miss Lowther ; 
and I do hope we shall be so fond of 
her.” 

Sir Gregory was pacified, and his 
headache for the time was cured. He 
had had his little scheme, and it had 
failed. Edith was very good, and she 
should still be his pet and his favorite, 
but Walter Marrable should be told that 
he might marry and bring his bride to 
Dunripple, and that if he would sell out 
of his regiment the family lawyer should 
be instructed to make such arrange- 
ments for him as would have been made 
had he actually been 2^ son. There 
would be some little difficulty about the 
colonel’s rights' but the colonel had al- 
ready seized upon so much that it could 
not but be easy to deal with him. On 
the next morning the letter was written 
to Walter by Mrs. Brownlow herself. 

About a week after this, Mary Low- 
ther, who was waiting at Loring with an 
outward show of patience, but with 
much inward anxiety, for further tidings 
from her lover, received two letters — 
one from Walter, and the other from her 
friend, Janet Fenwick. The reader shall 
see these, and the replies which Mary 
made to them, and then our whole story 
will have been told as far as the loves 
and hopes and cares and troubles of 
Mary Lowther are concerned : 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


293 


“ Bullhampton, 1st September. 
“Dearest Mary: 

“I write a line just because I said I 
would. Frank went up to London last 
week, and was away one Sunday. He 
found his poor friend in town, and was 
with him for two or three days. He 
has made up his mind to let the Privets 
and go abroad, and nothing that Frank 
could say would move him. I do not 
know whether it may not be for the best. 
We shall lose such a neighbor as we 
never shall have again. He was the 
same as a brother to both of us ; and I 
can only say that, loving him like a 
brother, I endeavored to do the best for 
him that I could. This I do know — 
that nothing on earth shall ever tempt 
me to set my hand at match-making 
again. But it was alluring — the idea 
of bringing my two dearest friends near 
me together. 

“ If you have anything to tell me of 
your happiness, I shall be delighted to 
hear it. I will not set my heart against 
this other man, but you can hardly ex- 
pect me to say that he will be as much 
to me as might have been that other. 
God bless you ! 

“Your most affectionate friend, 
“Janet Fenwick. 

“ I must tell you the fate of the chapel. 
They are already pulling it down, and 
carting away the things to the -other 
place. They are doing it so quick that 
it will all be gone before we know where 
we are. I own I am glad. As for 
Frank, I really believe he’d rather let it 
remain. But this is not all. The mar- 
quis has promised that we shall hear 
from him ‘ in a spirit of kindness.’ I 
wonder what this will come to ? It^cer- 
tainly was not a spirit of kindness that 
made him write to the bishop and call 
Frank an infidel.’’ 

And this was the other letter : 

“Barracks, ist September, 186 — . 

“ Dearest Love : 

“ I hope this will be one of the last 
letters I shall write from this abominable 
place, for I am going to sell out at once. 
It is all settled, and I’m to be a sort of 
deputy squire at Dunripple, under my 


uncle. As that is to be my fate in life, 

I may as well begin it at once. But 
that’s not the whole of my fate, nor the 
best of it. You are to be admitted as 
deputy squiress — or rather as squiress- 
in-chief, seeing that you will be mistress 
of the house. Dearest Mary, may I 
hope that you won’t object to the pro- 
motion ? 

“ I have had a long letter from Mrs. 
Brownlow, and I ran over yesterday 
and s^w my uncle. I was so hurried , 
that I could not write from Dunripple. 

I would send you Mrs. Brownlow’s let- 
ter, only perhaps it would not be quite 
fair. I dare say you will see it, some 
day. She says ever so much about you, 
and as complimentary as possible. And 
then she declares her purpose to resign 
all rights, honors, pains, privileges and 
duties of mistress of Dunripple into your 
hands as soon as you are Mrs. Marrable. 
And this she repeated yesterday with 
some stateliness and a great deal of 
high-minded resignation. But I don’t 
mean to laugh at her, because I know 
she means to do what is right. 

“ My own, own Mary, write me a line 
instantly to say that it is right, and to 
say also that you agree with me that as 
it is to be done, ’twere well it were done 
quickly. 

“Yours always, with all my heart, 

“W. M.’’ 

It was of course necessary that Mary 
should consult with her aunt before she 
answered the second letter. Of that 
which she received from Mrs. Fenv/ick 
she determined to say nothing. Why 
should she ever mention to her aunt 
again a name so painful to her as that 
of Mr. Gilmore ? The thinking of him 
could not be avoided. In this, the great ' 
struggle of her life, she had endeavored 
to do right, and yet she could not acquit 
herself of evil. But the pain, though it 
existed, might at least be kept out of 
sight. 

“And so you are to go and live at 
Dundpple at once ?’’ said Miss Mar- 
rable. 

“I suppose we shall. ’’^ 

“Ah, well! It’s all right. I’m sure. 


294 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


Of course there is not a word to be said 
against it. I hope Sir Gregory won’t 
die before the colonel, that’s all.” 

” The colonel is his father, you know.” 

“I hope there may not come to be 
trouble about it, that’s all. I shall be 
very lonely, but of course I had to ex- 
pect that.” 

‘‘You’ll come to us. Aunt Sarah? 
You’ll be as much there as here.” 

‘‘Thank you, dear. I don’t quite 
know about that. Sir Gregory, is all 
very well, but one does like one’s own 
house.” 

From all which Mary understood that 
her dear aunt still wished that she might 
have had her own way in disposing of 
her niece’s hand, as her dear friends at 
Bullhanrpton had wished to have theirs. 

The following were the answers from 
Mary to the two letters given above : 

4 

Loring, 2d September, i86 — . 
‘‘Dear Janet: 

‘‘ I am very, very, very sorry. I do 
not know what more I can say. I 
meant to do well, all through. When I 
first told Mr. Gilmore that it could not 
be as he wished it, I was right. When 
I made up my mind that it must be so 
at last, I was right also. I fear I cannot 
say so much of myself as to that middle 
step which I took, thinking it was best 
to do as I was bidden. I meant to be 
right, but of course I was wrong, and I 
am very, very sorry. Nevertheless, I 
am much obliged to you for writing to 
me. Of course I cannot but desire to 
know what he does. If he writes, and 
seems to be happy on his travels, pray 
tell me. 

‘‘ I have much to tell you of my own 
happiness, though, in truth, I feel a re- 
morse at being happy when I have 
caused so much unhappiness. Walter 
is to sell out and to live at Dunripple, 
and I also am to live there when we are 
married. I suppose it will not be long 
now. I am writing to him to-day, 
though I do not yet know what I shall 
say to him. Sir Gregory has assented, 
and arrangements are to be made and 
lawyers are to be consulted, and we 
are to be what Walter calls deputy 


squire and squiress at Dunripple. Mrs. 
Brownlow and Edith Brownlow are still 
to live there, but I am to have the hon- 
or of ordering the dinner and looking 
wise at the housekeeper. Of course I 
shall feel very strange at going into 
such a house. To you I may say how 
much nicer it would be to go to some 
place that Walter and I could have to 
ourselves, as you did when you married. 
But I am not such a simpleton to repine 
at that. So much has gone as I would 
have it that I only feel myself to be 
happier than I deserve. What I shall 
chiefly look forward to will be your first 
visit to Dunripple. 

‘‘ Your most affectionate friend, 

‘‘ Mary Lowther.” 

The other letter, as to which Mary 
had declared that she had not as yet 
made up her own mind when she wrote 
to Mrs. Fenwick, was more difficult in 
composition : 

Loring, 2d September, 186 — . 

‘‘ Dearest Walter : 

So it is all settled, and I am to be a 
deputy squiress ! I have no objection 
to urge. As long as you are the deputy 
squire, I will be the deputy squiress. 
For your sake, my dearest, I do most 
heartily rejoice that the affair is settled. 
I think you will be happier as a county 
gentleman than you would have been 
in the army; and as Dunripple must 
ultimately be your home — I will say our 
home — perhaps it is as well that you, 
and I also, should know it as soon as 
possible. Of course I am very nervous 
about Mrs. Brownlow and her daugh- 
ter, but though nervous I am not fear- 
ful ; and I shall prepare myself to like 
them. V 

‘‘As to that other matter, I hardly 
know what answer to make on so very 
quick a questioning. It was only the 
other day that it was decided that it was 
to be ; and there ought to be breathing- 
time before one also decides when. 
But, dear Walter, I will do nothing to 
interfere with your prospects. Let me 
knoAv what you think yourself ; but re- 
member, in thinking, that a little inter- 
val for purposes of sentiment and of 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


295 


stitching is always desired by the weak- 
er vessel on such an occasion. 

“God bless you, my own one ! 

“ Yours always and always, 

“M. L. 

“ In real truth, I will do whatever you 
bid me.” 

Of course, after that the marriage was 
not very long postponed. Walter Mar- 
rable allowed that some grace should 
be given for sentiment, and some also 
for stitching, but as to neither did he 
feel that any long delay was needed. 
A week for sentiment, and two more for 
the preparation of bridal adornments, he 
thought would be sufficient. There was 
a compromise at last, as is usual in such 
cases, and the marriage took place 
about the middle of October. No doubt 
at that time of year they went to Italy, 
but of that the present narrator is not 
able to speak with any certainty. This, 
however, is certain — that if they did 
travel abroad, Mary Marrable traveled 
in daily fear lest her unlucky fate should 
bring her face to face with Mr. Gilmore. 
Wherever they went, their tour, in ac- 
cordance with a contract made by the 
baronet, was terminated within two 
months, for on Christmas Day, Mrs. 
Walter Marrable was to take her place 
as mistress of the house at the dinner- 
table. 

The reader may, perhaps, desire to 
know whether things were made alto- 
gether smooth with the colonel. On 
this matter Messrs. Block & Curling, 
the family lawyers, encountered very 
much trouble indeed. The colonel, 
when application was made to him, was 
as sweet as honey. He would do any- 
thing for the interest of his dearest son. 
There did not breathe a father on earth 
who cared less for himself or his own 
position. But still he must live. He 
submitted to Messrs. Block & Curling 
whether it was not necessary that he 
should live. Messrs. Block & Curling 
explained to him very clearly that his 
brother, the baronet, had nothing to do 
with his living or dying, and that to- 
ward his living he had already robbed 
his son of a large property. At last. 


however, he would not make over his 
life interest in the property, as it would 
come to him in the event of his brother 
dying before him, except on payment 
of an annuity on and from that date of 
two hundred pounds a year. He began 
by asking five hundred pounds, and 
was then told that the captain would 
run the chance and would sue his father 
for the twenty thousand pounds in the 
event of Sir Gregory dying before the 
colonel. 

Now the narrator will bid adieu to 
Mary Lowther, to Boring and to Dun- 
ripple. The conduct of his heroine, as 
depicted in these pages, will, he fears, 
meet with the disapprobation of many 
close and good judges of female cha- 
racter. He has endeavored to describe 
a young woman prompted in all her 
doings by a conscience wide awake, 
guided by principle, willing, if need be, 
to sacrifice herself, struggling always to 
keep herself from doing wrong, but yet 
causing infinite grief to others, and 
nearly bringing herself to utter ship- 
wreck, because for a while she allowed 
herself to believe that it would be right 
for her to marry a man whom she did 
not love. 


CHAPTER LXXII. 

AT TURNOVER CASTLE. 

Mrs. Fenwick had many quips and 
quirks with her husband as to those 
tidings to be made in a pleasant spirit 
which were expected from Turnover 
Castle. From the very moment that 
Lord St. George had given the order — 
upon the authority chiefly of the unfor- 
tunate Mr. Bolt, who on this occasion 
found it to be impossible to refuse to 
give an authority which a lord demand- 
ed from him — the demolition of the 
building had been commenced. Before 
the first Sunday came any use of the 
new chapel for divine service was al- 
ready impossible. On that day Mr. 
Puddleham preached a stirring sermon 
about tabernacles in general. “It did 
not matter where the people of the Lord 
met,” he said, “so long as they did 


296 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


meet to worship the Lord in a proper 
spirit of independent resistance to any 
authority that had not come to them 
from revelation. Any hedge-side was a 
sufficient tabernacle for a devout Chris- 
tian. But — ” and then, without naming 
any name, he described the Church of 
England as a upas tree which by its 
poison destroyed those beautiful flowers 
which strove to spring up amidst the 
rank grass beneath it, and to make the 
air sweet within its neighborhood. Some- 
thing he said, too, of a weak sister tot- 
tering to its base, only to be followed in 
its ruin by the speedy prostration of its 
elder brother. All this was of course 
told in detail to the vicar, but the vicar 
refused even to be interested by it. 
“ Of course he did,” said the vicar. ” If 
a rftan is to preach, what can he preach 
but his own views ?” 

The tidings to be made in a pleasant 
spirit were not long waited for — or, at 
any rate, the first installment of them. 
On the 2d of September there arrived a 
large hamper full of partridges, ad- 
dressed to Mrs. Fenwick in the earl’s 
own handwriting. 

‘‘The very first fruits,” said the vicar, 
as he went down to inspect the plen- 
tiful provision thus made for the vicar- 
age larder. Well ! — it was certainly 
better to have partridges from Turnover 
than accusations of immorality and in- 
fidelity. The vicar so declared at once, 
but his wife would not at first agree 
with him. 

‘‘I really should have 'such pleasure 
in packing them up and sending them 
back !” said she. 

‘‘ Indeed, you shall do nothing of the 
kind.” 

‘‘The idea of a basket of birds to 
atone for such insults and calumny as 
that man has heaped on you !” 

‘‘ The birds will be only a first install- 
ment,” said the vicar, and then there 
were more quips and quirks about that. 
It was presumed by Mr. Fenwick that 
the second installment would be the first 
pheasants shot in October. But the sec- 
ond installment came before September 
was over, in the shape of the following 
note ; 


“Turnover Park, 20th Sept., 186 — . 

‘‘The Marquis of Trowbridge and the 
Ladies Sophie and Caroline Stowte re- 
quest that Mr. and Mrs. Fenwick will 
do them the honor of coming to Turn- 
over Park on Monday, the 6th October, 
and staying till Saturday, the nth.” 

‘‘That’s an installment indeed!” said 
Mrs. Fenwick. ‘‘And now what on 
earth are we to do ?” The vicar ad- 
mitted that it had become very serious. 
‘‘We must either go and endure a terrible 
time of it,” continued Mrs. Fenwick, ‘‘or 
we must show him very plainly that we 
will have nothing more to do with him. 
I don’t see why we are to be annoyed 
merely because he is a marquis.” 

‘‘ It won’t be because he is a marquis.” 

‘‘Why, then ? You can’t say that you 
love the old man, or that the Ladies 
Sophie and Caroline Stowte are the 
women you’d have me choose for my 
companions, or that that soapy, silky, 
humbugging Lord St. George is to your 
taste.” 

‘‘I am not sure about St. George. 
He can be everything to everybody, 
and would make an excellent bishop.” 

‘‘You know you don’t like him, and 
you know also that you will have a very 
bad time of it at Turnover.” 

‘‘ I could shoot pheasants all the 
week.” 

‘‘Yes — with a conviction at the time 
that the Ladies Sophie and Caroline 
were calling you an infidel behind your 
back for doing so. As for myself, I feel 
perfectly certain that I should spar with 
them.” 

‘‘It isn’t because he’s a marquis,” 
said the vicar, carrying on his argument 
after a long pause. ‘‘ If I know myself, 
I think I may say that that has no al- 
lurement for me. And, to tell the truth, 
had he been simply a marquis, and had 
I been at liberty to indulge my own 
wishes, I would never have allowed 
myself to be talked out of my righteous 
anger by that soft-tongued son of his. 
But to us he is a man of the very great- 
est importance, because he owns the 
land on which the people live with whom 
we are concerned. It is for their welfare 



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The Visit to Turnover Castle . — [Page 297.] 





THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON, 


297 


that he and I should be on good terms 
together; and therefore if you don’t 
mind the sacrifice, I think we’ll go.” 

“What ! for the whole week, Frank?” 

The vicar was of opinion that the 
week might be judiciously curtailed by 
two days ; and consequently Mrs. Fen- 
wick presented her compliments to the 
Ladies Sophie and Caroline Stowte, and 
expressed the great pleasure which she' 
and Mr. Fenwick would have in going 
to Turnover Park on the Tuesday and 
staying till the Friday. 

“So that I shall only be shooting two 
days,” said the vicar, “which will modify 
the aspect of my infidelity considerably.” 

They went to Turnover Castle. The 
poor old marquis had rather a bad time 
of it for the hour or two previous to their 
arrival. It had become an acknow- 
ledged fact now in the county that Sam 
Brattle had had nothing to do with the 
murder of Farmer Trumbull, and that 
his acquaintance with the murderers had 
sprung from his desire to see his unfor- 
tunate sister settled in marriage with a 
man whom he at the time did not know 
to be disreputable. There had therefore 
been a reaction in favor of Sam Brattle, 
whom the county now began to regard 
as something of a hero. The marquis, 
understanding all that, had come to be 
aware that he had wronged the vicar in 
that matter of the murder. And then, 
though he had been told upon very good 
authority — no less than that of his daugh- 
ters, who had been so informed by the 
sisters of a most exemplary neighboring 
curate — that Mr. Fenwick was a man 
who believed “just next to nothing,” 
and would just as soon associate with a 
downright pagan like old Brattle as with 
any professing Christian, still there was 
the fact of the bishop’s good opinion ; 
and, though the marquis was a self-will- 
ed man, to him a bishop was always a 
bishop* It was also clear to him that he 
had been misled in those charges which 
he had made against the vicar in that 
matter of poor Carry Brattle’s residence 
at Salisbury. Something of the truth 
of the girl’s history had come to the ears 
of the marquis, and he had been made 
to believe that he had been wrong. 


Then there was the affair of the chapel, 
in which, under his son’s advice, he was 
at this moment expending seven hun- 
dred pounds in rectifying the mistake 
which he had made. In giving the mar- 
quis his due we must acknowledge that 
he cared but little about the money. 
Marquises, though they may have large 
properties, are not always in possession 
of any number of loose hundreds which 
they can throw away without feeling the 
loss. Nor was the Marquis of Trow- 
bridge so circumstanced now. But that 
trouble did not gall him nearly so 
severely as the necessity which was on 
him to rectify an error made by himself. 
He had done a foolish thing. Under 
no circumstances should the chapel 
have been built on that spot. He knew 
it now, and he knew that he must apolo- 
gize. Noblesse oblige. The old lord was 
very stupid, very wrong-headed and 
sometimes very arrogant, but he would 
not do a wrong if he knew it, and noth- 
ing on earth would make him tell a 
willful lie. The epithet indeed might 
have been omitted, for a lie is not a lie 
unless it be willful. 

Lord Trowbridge passed the hours of 
this Tuesday morning under the fright- 
ful sense of the necessity for apologiz- 
ing ; and yet he remembered well the 
impudence of the man — how he had 
ventured to allude to the Ladies Stowte, 
likening them to — ^to — ^to — It was ter- 
rible to be thought of. And his lordship 
remembered, too, how this man had 
written about the principal entrance to 
his own mansion as tnougn it had been 
no more than the entrance to any other 
man’s house. Though the thorns still 
rankled in his own flesh,, he had to own 
that he himself had been wrong. 

And he did it — with an honesty that 
was beyond the reach of his much 
more clever son. When the Fenwicks 
arrived they were taken into the draw- 
ing-room, in which were sitting the 
Ladies Sophie and Caroline, wi th various 
guests already assembled at tlite castle. 
In a minute or two the marquis shuffled 
in and shook hands with the twp new- 
comers. Then he shuffled about the 
room for another minute or two, an^d at 


298 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


last got his arm through that of the 
vicar and led him away into his own 
sanctum. 

“Mr. Fenwick,” he said, “I think it 
best to express my regret at once for 
two things that have occurred.” 

“ It does not signify, my lord.” 

“ But it does signify to me ; and if you 
will listen to me for a moment, I shall 
take your doing so as a favor added to 
that which you have conferred upon me 
in coming here.” The vicar could only 
bow and listen. “I am sorry, Mr. Fen- 
wick, that I should have written to the 
bishop of this diocese in reference to 
your conduct.” Fenwick found it very 
difficult to hold his tongue when this 
was said. He imagined that the mar- 
quis was going to excuse himself about 
the chapel, and about the chapel he 
cared nothing at all. But as to that letter 
to the bishop, he did feel that the less 
.xbout it the better. He restrained 
hims( If, however, and the marquis went 
fvi; “Things had been told me, Mr. 
Fenwick, and I thought that I was doing 
my d ity.” 

“ I., did me no harm, my lord.” 

“T b : . “ot. I had been misin- 

ior^.ii d : nd 1 ay Jogize.” The mar- 
'!r d a a di.: vicar bowed. It is 
prc.i .. ' U; Uiat the /icar did not at all 
kn: vr^io^\ deep a' that moment were 
the sui v ings of -ne marquis. “And 
now as to th* ':apel,” continued the 
marqua; 

ierd, th •: s such a trifle that you 
mu5t .‘t s.iy that it is not and has 
not ' ■ en i e lightest consequence.” 

‘ 1 ui.> d i as tb that bit of ground.” 

“ ' oi'lv my lord, that the chapel 
ccuid stand th;..:e.” 

i haf is im possible. The land has 
b a a a, prop^’ated to other purposes, 
r’' ’ ihough .,we have all been a little in 
tl '■ dark. a^'Ut our own rights, right 
must be dbne. I will only add that I 
have die grratest satisfaction in seeing 
you and Mrs. Fenwick at Turnover, 
aa'l vaat. I hope the satisfaction may 
i repeated.” Then he led the 
wayb .i~k into the drawing-room, and 
. i . , 1 ' \ ur had passed over his head. 

I ’-pi n t.ie whole, things went very 


well with both the vicar and his wife 
during their visit. He did go out shoot- 
ing one day, and was treated very civ- 
illy by the Turnover gamekeeper, though 
he was prepared with no five-pound note 
at the end of his day’s amusement. 
When he returned to the house his host 
congratulated him on his performance 
just as cordially as though he had been 
one of the laity. On the next day he 
rode with Lord St. George to see the 
County Hunt kennels, which were then 
at Charleycoats, and nobody seemed to 
think him very wicked because he ven- 
tured to have an opinion about hounds. 
Mrs. Fenwick’s amusements were per- 
haps less exciting, but she went through 
them with equanimity. She was taken 
to see the parish schools, and was walk- 
ed into the parish church, in which the 
Stowte family were possessed of an en- 
ormous recess called a pew, but which 
was in truth a room’ with a fireplace in 
it. Mrs. Fenwick thought it did not 
look very much like a church, but as 
the Ladies Stowte were clearly very 
proud of it, she held her peace as to 
that idea. And so the visit to Turnover 
Park was made, and the Fenwicks were 
driven home. 

“After all, there’s nothing like bury- 
ing the hatchet,” said he. 

“But who sharpened the hatchet?” 
asked Mrs. Fenwick. 

“ Never mind who sharpened it. We 
have buried it.” 


CHAPTER LXXIII. 

CONCLUSION. 

There is nothing further left to be 
told of this story of the village of Bull- 
hampton and its vicar, beyond what 
may be necessary to satisfy the reader 
as to the condition and future prospects 
of the Brattle family. The writer of 
these pages ventures to hope that what- 
ever may have been the fate in the 
reader’s mind of that couple which are 
about to settle themselves peaceably at 
Dunripple, and to wait there in comfort 
till their own time for reigning shall 
have come, some sympathy may have 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON, 


been felt with those humbler personages 
who have lived with orderly industry at 
the mill ; as also with those who, led 
away by disorderly passions, have stray- 
ed away from it and have come back 
again to the old home. 

For a couple of days after the return 
of the miller with his daughter and son 
very little was said about the past — very 
little, at least, in which either the father 
or Sam took any part. Between the 
two sisters there were no doubt ques- 
tions and answers by the hour together 
as to every smallest detail of the oc- 
currences at Salisbury. And the mother 
almost sang hymns of joy over her child, 
in that the hour which she had so much 
dreaded had passed by. But the miller 
said not a word, and Sam was almost 
equally silent. 

“But it be all over, Sam ?” asked his 
mother, anxiously, one day. “For cer- 
tain sure it be all over now ?” 

“There’s one, mother, for whom it 
ain’t all over yet — poor devil !’’ 

“But he was — the murderer, Sam.” 

“So was t’other fellow. There weren’t 
no difference. If one was more spry to 
kill fold chap than f other. Acorn was 
the spryest. That’s what I think. But 
if s done now, and there ain’t been much 
justice in it. As far as I sees, there 
never ain’t much justice. They was 
nigh a-hanging o’ me ; and if those 
chaps had thought o’ bringing fold 
man’s box nigh the mill, instead of over 
by t’old woman’s cottage, they would ha’ 
hung me outright. And then they was 
twelve months about it ! I don’t think 
much on ’em.” When his mother tried 
to continue the conversation — which she 
would have loved to do, with that mor- 
bid interest which we always take in a 
matter which has been nearly fatal to 
us, but from which we have escaped — 
Sam turned into the mill, saying that 
he had had enough of it, and wouldn’t 
have any more. 

Then, on the third day, a report of 
the trial in a county newspaper reached 
them. This the miller read all through, 
painfully, from the beginning to the 
end, omitting no detail of the official 
occurrences. At last, when he came to 


299 

the account of Sam’s evidence, he got 
up from the chair on which he was sit- 
ting close to the window, and striking 
his fist upon the table, made his first 
and last comment upon the trial : “ It 
was well said, Sam. Yes, though thou 
be’est my own, it was well said.” Then 
he put the paper down and walked out 
of doors, and they could see that his 
eyes were full of tears. 

But from that time forth there came 
a great change in his manner to his 
youngest daughter. “Well, Carry,” he 
would say to her in the morning, with 
as much outward sign of affection as he 
ever showed to any one ; and at night, 
when she came and stood over him be- 
fore he lifted his weary limbs out of his 
chair to take himself away to his bed, 
he turned his forehead to her to be kiss- 
ed, as he did to that better daughter 
who had needed no forgiveness from 
him. Nevertheless, they who knew him 
— and there were none who knew him 
better than Fanny did — were aware that 
he never for a moment forgot the dis- 
grace which had fallen upon his house- 
hold. He had forgiven the sinner, but 
the shame of the sin was always on 
him ; and he carried himself as a man 
who was bound to hide himself from 
the eyes of his neighbors because there 
had come upon him a misfortune which 
made it fit that he should live in re- 
tirement. 

Sam took up his abode in the house 
and worked daily in the mill, and for 
weeks nothing was said either of his 
going away or of his return. He would 
talk to his sisters of the manner in 
which he had worked among the ma- 
chinery of the Durham mine at which 
he had found employment, but he said 
nothing for a while of the cause which 
had taken him north, or of his purpose 
of remaining where he was. He ate 
and drank in the house, and from time 
to time his father paid him small sums 
as wages. At last, sitting one evening 
after the work of the day was done, he 
spoke out his mind. “ Father,” said he, 
“I’m about minded to get me a wife.” 
His mother and sisters were all there, 
and heard the proposition made. 


300 


THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON. 


“And who is the girl as is to have 
thee, Sam ?’’ asked his mother. 

As Sam did not answer at once, Carry 
replied for him: “Who should it be, 
mother, but only Agnes Pope?” 

“It ain’t that ’un ?” said the miller, 
surlily. 

“And why shouldn’t it be that ’un, 
father ? It is that ’um, and no other. 
If she be not liked here, why, we’ll just 
go farther, and perhaps not fare worse.” 

There was nothing to >be said against 
poor Agnes Pope — only this, that she 
had been in Trumbull’s house on the 
night of the murder, and had for a while 
been suspected by the police of having 
communicated to her lover the tidings 
of the farmer’s box of money. Evil 
things had of course been said of her 
then, but the words spoken of her had 
been proved to be untrue. She had 
been taken from the farmer’s house 
into that of the vicar, who had, indeed, 
been somewhat abused by the Puddle- 
hamites for harboring her ; but as the 
belief in Sam’s guilt had been gradual- 
ly abandoned, so, of course, had the 
ground disappeared for supposing that 
poor Agnes had had aught to do in 
bringing about the murder of her late 
master. For two days the miller was 
very gloomy, and made no reply when 
Sam declared his purpose of leaving 
the mill before Christmas unless Agnes 
should be received there as his wife ; 
but at last he gave way. “As the old 
’uns go into their graves,” he said, “ it 
is no more than nature that the young 
’uns should become masters.” And so 


Sam was married, and was taken, with 
his wife, to live with the other Brattles 
at the mill. It was well for the miller 
that it should be so, for Sam was a man 
who would surely earn money when he 
put his shoulder in earnest to the wheel. 

As for Carry, she lived still with them, 
doomed by her beauty, as was her elder 
sister by the want of it, to expect that 
no lover should come and ask her to 
establish with him a homestead of their 
own. 

Our friend the vicar married Sam and 
his sweetheart, and is still often at the 
mill. From time to time he has made 
efforts to convert the unbelieving old 
man whose grave is now so near to his 
feet, but he has never prevailed to make 
the miller own even the need of any 
change. “ I’ve struv’ to be honest,” he 
said, when last he was thus attacked, 
“and I’ve wrought for my wife and 
bairns. I ain’t been a drunkard, nor 
yet, as I knows on, neither a tale-bearer 
nor yet a liar. I’ve been harsh-temper- 
ed and dour enough, I know, and may- 
be it’s fitting as they shall be hard and 
dour to me where I’m going. I don’t 
say again it. Muster Fenwick, but noth- 
ing as I can do now will change it.” 
This, at any rate, was clear to the vicar 
— that Death, when ' it came, would 
come without making the old man 
tremble. 

Mr. Gilmore has been some years 
away from Bullhampton, but when I 
last heard from my friends in that vil- 
lage I was told that at last he Avas ex- 
pected home. ' 


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es. While faithful to science, it is reverential to relig- 
ion and the Bible, so that the Christian meets with no 
sneers at theology or miracles, but with a devout rec- 
ognition of God as the author of the system of nature. 
* * * One charm of the work is that it treats largely 
of American localities and phenomena, thus instruct- 
ing the people concerning their own country. — Advance. 

Shows large knowledge, and is written with an elo- 
quence that glows from the first page to the last. His 
pen pictures are so striking that" there seems little 
need of illustrations ; but these are so numerous and 
interesting that they make the book additionally at- 
tractive. — Boston Correspondent of Cincinnati Chronicle. 


Professor Winchell presents a popular view of 
some of the important discoveries and conclusions 
of modern science, and has succeeded in making 
a book of much interest. There are very many per- 
sons who desire some knowledge of the origin, con- 
struction, and development of the earth and of its re- 
lations to the other bodies in the solar system, yet 
have neither the time nor the patience to master the 
details of the subject. Those details so burden ordi- 
nary geological treatises that this class of inquirers is 
repelled from their study. They will find this sum- 
mary of the matter better adapted to their purpose 
than almost any thing else that has appeared.— AYooA- 
lyn Eagle. 


Cocker’s Christianity and Greek Philosophy. 


Christianity and Greek Philosophy ; or, the Relation between Spontaneous 
and Reflective Thought in Greece and the Positive Teaching of Christ and 
his Apostles. By B. F. Cocker, D.D., Professor of Moral and Mental Phi- 
losophy in Michigan University. Crown 8vo, Cloth. ( Nearly Ready.) 


“This work comprises a profound discussion of 
the leading philosophical and religious problems of 
the day, with special reference to the theories of 
Comte, Sir William Hamilton, Herbert Spencer, and 
other great thinkers of a recent period, together with 
a copious exposition of the ancient Greek systems, 
and the social condition of Athens. It is a work of 
rare erudition. The writer has mastered his subject 
and the learning which pertains to it. He is familiar 
with the prominent systems, and well understands 
their scope and bearings. He has a remarkable talent 


for concise, methodical, and exact statements on ab- 
struse subjects. At the same time, his learning does 
not oppress him — does not interfere with his own men- 
tal action. He is a firm and independent thinker. His 
work forms a valuable guide to the history of ancient 
and modern speculation, while it is full of important 
original suggestions. Its publication really forms an 
epoch in the history of American philosophical litera- 
ture, and elevates its author to a high rank among the 
philosophical writers of the age. E very philosophical 
student in the country will find it a treasure." 


Life and Letters of Mary Russell Mitford. 

The Life of Mary Russell Mitford, Authoress of “ Our Village, &c.” Told 
by Herself in Letters to Her Friends. With Anecdotes and Sketches of her 
most celebrated Contemporaries. Edited by Rev. A. G. K. L’Estrange. 2 


vols., i2mo. Cloth, $3 50. 

The interest of these volumes is twofold — personal 
and literary. Miss Mitford’s life, as mournful as it 
was beautiful, is more deserving of remembrance than 
any of her writings. It exhibits a spirit of self-sacri- 
* lice, of filial devotion— and shall we add, of filial de- 
lusion ?— which is to most of us almost past under- 
standing. The letters, which commence with the 
century°and terminate in 1S55, abound with delightful 
literary gossip and personal reminiscences. The style 
is admirable: simple, unaffected, idiomatic. The bits 
of rural description remind us of “Our Village," and 
the remarks on men and books are generous and dis- 
criminating. Such a book allures us on from page to 
page with a curious fascination : every moment the 
eye is attracted by a familiar name, or by a criticism 


which compels attention by some pleasant thought or 
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don Spectator. 

Very interesting and entertaining volumes. Noth- 
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of distinguished people who came in their author’s 
way. — Saturday Revieio. 


Lord Lytton’s Odes and Epodes of Horace. 

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It exhibits throughout a painstaking endeavor to 
render the graceful song of the Roman lyrist into 
rhvmeless measures with the least possible sacrifice 
of literal accuracy ; and we think in reproducing that 
curiosa felicitas verborum for which Horace is so justly 
famous, he has frequently been more successful than 


any previous translators. * * * The first thing which 
strikes us is the literalness and verbal accuracy of 
the translations ; and we notice with pleasure how 
frequently Lord Lytton has successfully imitated that 
terseness which he praises so much in the Roman pofct. 
— Examiner and London Review. 


4 


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DRAPER’S HISTORY 

OF THE 

AMERICAI CIVIL WAR. 


HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR. By John Wm. Draper, 
M.D., LL.D., Professor of Chemistry and Physiology in the University of 
New York, Author of a “ Treatise on Human Physiology,” “ History of the 
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each. Cloth, Beveled Edges, price $3 50 per Volume. 


That able writer and profound thinker, Professor 
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denses all history into a theory for which he has 'writ- 
ten these works, that have added such honor to his 
name, and added so much glory and just renown to 
American literature. — Speech of Vice-President Scuuy- 
LEE Colfax, Providence^ June 28tk, 1869. 

The leading political questions involved in the na- 
tional legislation for nearly half a century are amply 
discussed, and their influence on recent events is elu- 
cidated with clearness and impartiality. A certain 
dramatic aspect is given to the successive steps which 
preceded the Rebellion, from the movement of nullifi- 
cation to the conflict in Kansas. The novelty of the 
work consists not so much in the exhibition of facts 
before unknown as in the effective grouping of famil- 
iar events so as to form a grand historical unity. — 
New York Tribune. 

With a fluent eloquence, a vast array of facts, a lucid 
arrangement, and an argumentative skill, the problem 
of the civil war is solved as an event born of numer- 
ous antecedent causes : its principles are laid bare, and 
we have what can not fail to heal and harmonize — be- 
cause to enlighten and elevate— a philosophical history 
of the Southern Rebellion . — Boston Transcript. 

Professor Draper treats of the causes of our late civil 
war with great clearness, and in that wise spirit of 
philosophy and patriotic statesmanship for which he 
IS distinguished. We have not in a long time looked 
into a book containing so much of pure iutellect as 
this . — Congressional Gtobe. 

Greatly to be praised for its clear, candid, impartial 
exposition of the relation of slavery to the Civil War ; 
and his judgment is entitled to the more weight be- 
cause he does not write as a partisan . — English Inde- 
pendent. 

It is animated, picturesque, and eminently attractive 
in style. He admirably condenses the narrative of 
events bearing upon our great national struggle, giv- 
ing each its due prominence, and sketching with 
graphic effect those which had the most marked influ- 
ence in hastening the crisis ; Und weaves in with this 
the argument of the work with a skill that leads each 
to aid the interest of the other . — Roxbury Journal. 

The style is remarkably clear, free of political bias, 
very systematic in chronological data, and the entire 
compass of the work exhibits rare historical ability. — 
Patriot (Woonsocket, R. L). 

Dr. Draper has great dramatic powers, and his his- 
torical pictures are always finely colored. They are 
not sensational battle^ieces and personal situations 
merely; but they contaip a profound philosophical 
suggestiveness, bringing out by their skillful contrasts 
and delicate light and shade the inner meanings of 
history, and attempting the solution of the great hu- 
man problems that agitate the world, and are con- 
stantly upheaving, destroying, emerging from, and as- 
similating old and new forms of social, civil, and po- 
litical IMq.— D etroit Press. 


Dr. Draper is an admirable writer of history. He 
aims to search beneath the surface of things, to deal 
with the deeper and hidden causes of national prosper- 
ity and national disaster. Dr. Draper’s idea of history 
is the true one, and in carrying it out he shows that he 
has been a careful and laborious student, an acute 
observer, and a dispassionate judge. Philosophical 
breadth of view, and perfect impartiality in presenting 
facts, are among the qualifications which should be de- 
manded of him who presumes to write history ; and 
these are certainly possessed in a high degree by Dr. 
Draper. — Citizen. 

No other book on American history is so calculated 
to teach important lessons, and lead to sharp observa- 
tions, wise reflections, as this. * * * Whatever the solu- 
tion of the precise causes, physical or metaphysical, 
that built up antagonistic ideas and antagonistic sys- 
tems in the North and the South, Dr. Draper’s appre- 
ciation of the essence of those distinctions— of the po- 
litical complications they drew on, of the passions and 
convictions they engendered, and of the characters 
they called out into pijominence — can not be too high- 
ly praised. He has a fine, sympathetic imagination, 
which enables him to throw himself into the situation 
and feelings of either party in the great controversy. 
He sums up, with rare fairness, the honest complaints 
brought by the one against the other, and comprehends 
why they were felt to be honest. He helps to make 
the belligerent sections understand, and so both pity 
and respect, one another . — Christian Examiner. 

Very interesting and suggestive, and contains many 
new and valuable ideas, and the calm, philosophical 
toneii that pervades it renders it doubly enjoyable and 
valuable. — Congregationalist. 

The plan is carried out with the same ability dis- 
played by the author in his “History of the Intellect- 
ual Development of Europe” and his “Thoughts on 
the Future Civil Policy of America,” which have won 
for him a high place in literature. The facts stated 
and the reasonings employed are greatly instructive, 
and show how operative are natural causes in shaping 
national character and destiny. — Advance. 

Masterly in style, and thorough in scientific research. 
It can not fail to be of the most profound interest to 
the thoughtful reader of our history . — Northern Chris- 
tian Advocate. 

Replete with the author’s great ability and learning, 
and written in his well-known brilliant and rhetorical 
style, it forms a valuable contribution to the history 
and literature of the war, and will be widely read, anil 
always with instruction and profit.— iVeto Englander. 

Open it wherever you will, you will find rich matter 
for reflection and provocatives to thought . — Liberal 
Christian. 

The arrangement of the work is clear and system- 
atic. The underlying principles of the struggle are 
fully discussed at the same time that the facts of the 
history are presented in their true relations to the 
final decision.— t/iawn (Springfield, Mass.). 


Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 


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By the Author of “John Halifax.” 


A BRAVE LADY. Illustrated. 8vo, Paper, $i 003 Cloth, $i 50. 

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From the North British Review. 

Miss MULOCK’S NOVELS. 

She attempts to show how the trials, perplexities, joys, sorrows, labors, and successes of life deepen or wither the 
character according to its inward bent. 

She cares to teach, not how dishonesty is always plunging men into- infinitely more complicated external difficulties 
than it would in real life, but how any continued insincerity gradually darkens and corrupts the very life-springs of the 
mind ; not how all events conspire to crush an unreal being who is to be the “ example ” of the story, but how every 
event, adverse or fortunate, tends to strengthen and expand a high mind, and to break the springs of a selfish or merely 
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She does not limit herself to domestic conversations, and the mere shock of character on character : she includes a 
large range of events — the influence of worldly success and failures — the risks of commercial enterprises — the power of 
social position— in short, the various elements of a wider economy than that generally admitted into a tale. 

She has a true respect for her work, and never permits herself to “make books,” and yet she has evidently very 
great facility in making them. 

There are few writers who have exhibited a more marked progress, whether in freedom of touch or in depth of 
purpose, than the authoress of “The Ogilvies” and “John Halifax.” 


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CHARLES LEVEWS NOVELS. 


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BY THE LATE MRS 


GASK.EL/L. 


CRANFORD. i6mo. Cloth, 25. 

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London Examiner. 

That tender pathos, which could sink so deep — that gen- 
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ception, which nothing could escape — that wide sympa- 
thy, which ranged so far — those sweet moralities, which 
rang so true : it is indeed hard and sad to feel that these 
must be silent for us henceforth forever. 

Let us be grateful, however, that we have still those 
writings of hers which England will not willingly let die, 
and that she has given us no less an example of conscien- 
tious work and careful pains, by which we all alike may 
profit. For Mrs. Gaskell had not only genius of a high 
order, but she had also the true feeling of the artist, that 
grows impatient at whatever is unfinished or imperfect. 
Whether describing with touching skill the charities of 
poor to poor, or painting, with an art which Miss Austin 
might have envied, the daily round of common life, or 
merely telling, in her graphic way, some wild or simple 
tale : whatever the work, she did it with all her power, 
sparing nothing, scarcely sparing herself enough, if only 
the work were well and completely done. 

London Athencenm. 

To be missed, as all genuine and individual literary 
workers must and should be. 

London Review. 

But few writers in modern times could count upon so 
'.vide a circle of friends. Her death will be heard of with 
deep regret by readers of all grades and ranks. 


London Reader. 

Her works of fiction all retain their hold on the reading 
public She could paint English life in its truest col- 

ors ; and it is this, however fashion may change, that will 
make her works descend to posterity as a study both of 
genteel and manufacturing life of the reign of Queen Vic- 
toria, of which no other writer has given so vivid a picturS. 

London Saturday Review. 

A justly favorite writer. She had written herself into 
' a well-deserved popularity, not confined to Great Britain 
alone. Mrs. Gaskell has achieved a success which will 
live long after her. Her descriptive handiwork would 
bear comparison with that of Tennyson. 

Whatever Mrs. Gaskell wrote she felt and entered into 
most thoroughly. When she rose to her highest point,' 
she showed not only a thorough mastery of her subject 
and her materials, but a judicial command over her feel- 
ings. By her death the world of letters has lost a thorough- 
ly conscientious, industrious, pure-minded, imaginative, 
and vigorous artist. 

New York Evening Post. 

It is said that George Sand remarked to an English 
friend : “ Mrs. Gaskell has done what neither I nor other 
female writers in France can accomplish — she has written 
novels which excite the deepest interest in men of tho 
world, and which every girl will be the better for read 
ing.” 


Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, Franklin Sc^are, New York. 


Sent by Mail to any part of the United States^ postage free^ on receipt of the Pn'Jfc 


FISHING IN AMERICAN WATERS. 

! i 

By GENIO C. SCOTT. 

Elegantly Illustrated. 484 pp., Crown 8vo, Cloth, Beveled Edges, $3 50. 


From J. H. Slack, M.D., Bloomsbury, N. J., to the 
Author. 

“Allow me, as one of those who ‘ fear God, love their 
neighbor, and go a fishing,’ to thank you for your 
book on American fishes — the first really good book 
on the subject ever written. I bought my copy last 
evening, and, to the great disgust of Mrs. S., sat up 
nearly all night reading it." * * * 

From Col. W. Rhodes, President “Fish and Gam* 
Club," Quebec, to the Author. 

“ I congratulate you most sincerely upon your signal 
success in jiroducing a work which must necessarily 
form a portion of the library of every angler on this 
continent." 

Mr. Genio C. Scott, a gentleman well known to the 
whilom readers of the Home Journal, he having been 
for many years connected with the paper as associate 
editor and contributor, has prepared an interesting 
and valuable work on “ Fishing in American Waters," 
a subject which has attracted his principal attention 
for the past twenty-five years. The subject is divided 
into Coast and Estuary Fishing with Rod and Line, 
Fresh-Water Fishing with Fly and Bait, Commercial 
Fisheries, Ancient and Modern Fish -Culture, and a 
Glimpse of Ichthyology. — Home Journal, N. Y. 

As a treatise it is full, systematic, exact, trustwor- 
thy, and well-nigh exhaustive. Altogether a work of 
rare merit, wherein art, science, poetry, political econ- 
omy, practical philanthrophy, aud good, sound sense 
are combined in an harmonious service.— C/iristian 
Intelligencer. 

The author and Harper & Brothers have earned the 
thanks of fishermen, lovers of natural history, aud de- 
vourers of recorded travel and adventure, by produc- 
ing this brilliant, readable, useful book. It is what one 
might call, without much stretch, a cyclopaedia of Amer- 
ican fishes and fishing. — Journal of Commerce, N. Y. 

Contains a vast amount of information concerning 
the sea and fresh-water fishes of our Americau waters, 
the various methods of capturing them, the tackle to 
be employed, etc. Important in respect of fish-culture. 
This book, like the author of it, is eminently practi- 
cal, and every angler ought to have it. We doubt 
whether there is another man in America capable of 
writing and illustrating, as Mr. Scott has done, such 
a book as this. — Spirit of the Times. 

The game fish of the sea-coast, the lakes, and the 
mountain brooks of the country are all fully depicted 
and described with the accuracy of a savant aud the 
zeal of an artist, and the methods and apparatus by 
which they may best be taken are fully communicated. 
—N. Y. Sun. 

Full of valuable information, its appearance is op- 
portune, as public opinion is just now being fully 
aroused to the national importance of the subjects of 
which it treats. — Turf, Field, and Farm. 

The Fish Commissioners have found that the gen- 
eral ignorance of the people and of our legislators 
has been the greatest obstacle to success. Mr. Scott’s 
book is meant and is admirably adapted to the educa- 
tion of the people in this direction. He has given 
in this handsome volume what is really the best and 
most practical contribution to this class of literature 
ever published in America. — N. Y. Daily Times. 

Those of the fish are almost the only accurately dis- 
tinctive woodcuts which we have ever seen. * * * The 
book has certainly been got up with painstaking care 
and a devoted love of the subject, aud it unquestiona- 
bly contains a vast mass of valuable information and 
innumerable useful directions. — W. Y. Citizen. 

Hand-books aud dissertations on angling and pisci- 
culture are numerous enough to supply the superficial 
wants of anglers who believe their experience sufficient 
for their purposes. The magnitude of their error, how- 
ever, will be apparent on perusing this volume, in 
which they may learn how little they really know and 
how much is to be studied. — Brooklyn Daily Times. 


We received a copy last week and handed it for crit- 
icism to an experienced and well-read angler, who re- 
ports that it is the most thorough and satisfactory 
treatise on the subject of the gentle art that has ever 
been given to the public. — National Republican. 

The author is a skillful votary of the fascinating art, 
to which he has given many years of successful prac- 
tice, not only with an unusual knowledge of the sub 
ject, but with a keen sense of its manifold enjoy- 
ments. * * * Describes the principal varieties of the 
American salt and fresh water fishes, offers minute 
directions for the most feasible methods of capture, 
and enlivens his statements by relations of personal 
adventures in many waters, aud picturesque descrip- 
tions of nature. — N. Y. Daily Tribune. 

The book can be heartily recommended to both ex- 
perts and amateurs ; to one it will be entertaining, to 
the other instructive. — N. Y. Express. 

His statistical information is very minute as well as 
comprehensive. He has gathered his knowledge from 
experience aud from a ■mde circle of authorities, and 
it will be found to be most valuable to the general 
reader, and more especially to those who are making 
the subject of the preservation and propagation of 
food-fishes their study. — Boston Transcript. 

We commend this volume as next to indispensable 
to all fishermen of this neighborhood who want to 
know just what to do, and how to do it, in order to 
use a day or a w'eek to the best advantage in pursuit 
of sport. It is excellent in its detail, good in facts, in 
illustration, and very interesting in the glimpse it 
gives of that comparatively new science, the cultiva- 
tion of fish. — N. Y. Herald. 

We have rarely seen a more charming or more seiw- 
iceable volume for the fisherman than Mr. Scott’s. — 
N. Y. Evening Post. 

A perfect encyclopaedia of infoi*mation for the disci- 
ples of Walton. Its narrative is as full of enthusiasm 
as of facts, and accordingly it is interesting reading. 
— Cincinnati Gazette. 

The most charming and altogether the best volume 
on Fishing ever published in America. — Philadelphia 
City Item. 

Scientifically and historically valuable, and will give 
its author a place among the very best writers upon 
the general subject of Icthyology. — A Ibany Journal. 

Here is a book to “make your mouth water.” * * * 
The pictures are beautiful. If you want to know any 
thing about fish or fishing that you can not find in this 
book, you had better “ take to the water” at once.— 
Richmond Whig. 

He has gathered up the aggregate information ob- 
tained by him in many years of experimental study, 
and presented the results in the shape of a methodi- 
cal aud well-arranged treatise. He never gets techni- 
cal, pedantic, or dull. — N. Y. Evening Mail. 

This is no common book : it is full of valuable in- 
formation and of personal experiences and adventures, 
and withal written in a plain style— Z)ai7y Star, N. Y. 

All can enjoy it, and no fisherman can afford to be 
without it.— A cmj Haven Palladium. 

There is a freshness and spirit in his writings, a 
certain realism and life, a vital memory of the forest 
and the river, the roll and roar of the sea, the murmur 
of the brook, that give them a charm and interest 
which we look for in vain in the pages of many other 
modern writers on the gentle art — N. Y. Commercial 
Advertiser. 

A thoroughly agreeable and fascinating book. It 
does full justice to the delights of fishing, and reveals 
to the uninitiated the astoriishing fact that the pursuit 
has kept pace with the progress of the day, and be- 
come one of the noblest and most exacting of the fine 
arts. — N. Y. Leader. 

It contains a vast amount of information valuable 
to the tyro in angling, and much that the hoary Wal- 
tons will not despise, all interspersed with entertain- 
ing incidents drawn from Mr. Scott’s o^vn large expe- 
rience.— Springfield Republican. 


Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 

Sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, on receipt of $3 50. 





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